Why does the NB Media Co-op exist?
The NB Media Co-op was formed in 2009 following a successful New Brunswick Social Forum in 2008 in Fredericton, where 200 people rooted in a variety of social movements gathered under the hopeful banner, “Another New Brunswick and World are Possible.”
The people who came together at this forum — workers, students, anti-capitalists, anti-imperialists, peace activists, Indigenous rights activists, feminists, gay rights activists, labour unionists, environmentalists, social workers and artists — recognized they had one common problem: the media in New Brunswick.
Following the adage, “Don’t Hate the Media, Be the Media,” we did just that, and the NB Media Co-op was born months later and officially incorporated shortly after. Click here to learn more.
Who are we?
The NB Media Co-op is made possible by dedicated volunteers living on the unceded territories of the Wolastoqiyik/Wəlastəkewiyik/Maliseet, Mi’kmaw and Passamaquoddy/Peskotomuhkati in the province of New Brunswick in Canada. The editorial board and board of directors are elected at our annual general meeting held in September every year.
Click here to learn about our team.
How does someone become a member of the Co-op?
Becoming a member is very simple. Click here to become a member or to donate. You can also subscribe to our mailing list to get the news delivered to your inbox: info@nbmediacoop.org
How does the NB Media Co-op work?
We are mostly volunteers. Our editorial board members have journalism training and experience. All of us are committed to social justice.
Articles and story ideas come from our members and readers, or are initiated by the editorial board. We encourage all our contributors to review our story guidelines. The editors work with writers to shape a story suitable for publication. We strive for accuracy and attribution and do not publish anonymous stories. The editorial board reviews and approves commentaries. When editing articles, we use a social justice lens that considers access, agency, advocacy and solidarity action.
What do we publish and who reads us?
Our flagship online publication is called the NB Media Co-op, hosted on a secure server in Canada. We also publish a bi-monthly broadsheet called The Brief and produce a political talk show with CHCO-TV called the NB debrief.
As an independent media outlet, we publish stories not covered in the mainstream commercial media. Our stories take a social justice lens and include the perspectives of workers, students, Indigenous and racialized peoples, and other groups marginalized by society.
Most days, we add new stories to our online publication, through which we have access to user statistics. We monitor our stats to understand which stories are popular and where our users live. Every month, more than 25,000 unique readers access hundreds of stories on our online publication, including new stories and articles from our 13-year archive. Our stories are popular: every month each of our top news and opinion articles are read by more than 5,000 unique readers.
Our readers are primarily in New Brunswick, throughout the province, and we have regular readers across Canada. Every month, people in dozens of countries around the world also read our stories.
We share our stories on various social media sites, including X (formerly Twitter) and we are beginning to use Bluesky. Meta has shut down Canadian news content, but we’ve launched two new social media pages that we hope will allow us to work around those restrictions.
- Facebook: @TheBrief EnBref
- Instagram: @thebrief.enbref
We publish 1,500 copies of our broadsheet, The Brief, bi-monthly. The Brief is archived here. The Brief includes three recent stories from our online publication. We mail The Brief across the province and our local community distributers bring it to community centres, offices, cafés and other places where people gather and can pick it up for free. If you would like to distribute The Brief in your community, contact us: info@nbmediacoop.org.
Who funds the NB Media Co-op?
We rely on memberships and individual donations as well as support from labour unions and community partners.
We currently employ a journalist whose reporting has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada, with funding administered by the Canadian Association of Community Television Stations and Users (CACTUS).
At our annual general meeting, members approve the budget for the upcoming year. The NB Media Co-op is a registered non-profit cooperative with the province of New Brunswick. Our financial statements are submitted annually to the province following our annual members’ meeting.
Is the NB Media Co-op a member of any organizations?
The NB Media Co-op is a member of the following associations and networks:
- Canadian Association of Labour Media (CALM)
- Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS)
- unrigged.ca
How should errors or mistakes in an article be reported?
If you spot an error or mistake in an NB Media Co-op article please contact us as soon as possible by email to info@nbmediacoop.org. Thanks in advance for your assistance!
Does the NB Media Co-op have a corrections policy?
Yes, the NB Media Co-op adopted a corrections policy in October 2021.
The NB Media Co-op acknowledges that the process of publishing news inevitably means we will make mistakes. The NB Media Co-op values transparency, honesty, consistency and accuracy in reporting. We commit to making corrections promptly and informing our readers as soon as possible when a mistake is brought to our attention. We understand that correcting errors in a timely manner is part of our journalistic obligation to the public, and further builds trust with our readers.
Corrections are made for errors of fact. Corrections are not made for misspellings, typos, or broken links. Corrections are made if a person’s name is misspelled throughout a story. Corrections are for mistakes, and we distinguish these from updates used to reflect new information or clarifications.
When an error is identified in an article, we aim to act quickly to find the correct information, and clearly present the correction in the article. Normally, the article will be edited to include the correct information, and a note will be included at the end of the article to highlight the correct information; a brief explanation of the error (to avoid reinforcing the error, the incorrect information will only be restated if necessary for the purpose of clarification); the severity of the error (the corrections tone may indicate the gravity of the error); the date and time of the correction to the article.
Example: We corrected an error in an earlier version of this article with the incorrect number of people at the meeting. The correct number is x people were at the meeting. The correction was made on ‘date & time’.
If an error is identified in the text of a social media post (Facebook and Twitter), we will share a new social media post that explains the error, gives the correction information, and shows an image of the incorrect social media post. The deletion of the original social media post will mean that the incorrect social media post can no longer be viewed or shared. An example follows.
Original tweet with error: New Brunswick has lost a journalism giant with the passing of Claude Boudreau. Our deepest sympathies to his family and all our friends in New Brunswick who struggle for social justice who knew him.
If Claude Boudreau should be corrected to Jean Boudreau and New Brunswick should be corrected to Nova Scotia, the correction would be posted as follows: Correction: Nova Scotia has lost a journalism giant with the passing of Jean Boudreau. Our deepest sympathies to his family and all our friends in Nova Scotia who struggle for social justice who knew him. Boudreau’’s first name and province were wrong in a previous tweet: [image of previous tweet]. We have deleted the earlier tweet.
If an article with a correction has been shared on social media (Facebook and Twitter), but the text of the social media post does not contain an error or mistake, we will only share the corrected article again (with a brief note in the post that explains the error and gives the correct information) if the error is deemed of serious consequence.
Any more questions? Email info@nbmediacoop.org.
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