Page 10 - 08_Oct-2025

EDS
THE
READERS’
TRUST
Five years in, Edify has been a voice
and mirror for this city. Help us make
the next five possible
A little over five years ago, my predecessor, Steven
Sandor, sent a cryptic email to me and nine other writers — his
“inside circle of freelancers” for what was then still Avenue
Edmonton magazine. He wanted to meet with us on Zoom the
very next day, a Friday, at 4 p.m.
Media professionals call this the “late Friday dump” — the
prime-time slot for bad news you hope will slip past reporters.
News outlets loathe this tactic when governments employ it
but embrace it themselves, which in June 2020 was ever
more frequent, and so I assumed the worst.
After all, one of my last notes from Steve, on March 17 — six
days after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic
— was to cancel my latest assignment. The magazine was in
“transition,” he said, which I interpreted as a state of chaos caused
by collapsing ad revenues. His next missive, months later, was an
attempt at damage control after our sister publication, Avenue
Calgary, announced it would publish exclusively online until the
fall. “Don’t panic,” Steve wrote. Now he wanted us at an
urgent Friday meeting, signed NDA required. Sure Steve,
we won’t panic.
But it wasn’t bad news. It was, in fact, great news. After
14 years, Avenue Edmonton was parting with its Calgary
partners, reinventing itself as something authentically
Edmonton.
Truth be told, I’d wished for this since interning in
2008. Avenue Edmonton felt awkward on its feet then,
less from youth than from a brand tailored to Calgary’s
more corporate, status-driven culture. Edmonton is
an institutional city, more socially minded, preferring
grassroots initiatives over marquee spectacles.
Of course, there was much good to that awkward
photo ZACHARY AYOTTE
10 EDify. OCTOBER.25