Urban Affairs

Outline your brand statement
Urban Affairs (or, as we’d like to call it, Urban AF) tells uniquely Edmonton stories, in a way that does away with some of the kinda boring, established practices that are killing modern journalism. We don’t need to do the “we were there” reporting, to tell people about press conferences they already streamed. We prefer one-on-one chats to scrums. We don’t want to be just another outlet sending another reporter to shove a recorder into someone’s grill.

Basically, we know you’re already plugged into the city. We know you read the papers, websites and watch the news. You care about your community. There’s no need for us to rehash what they’re doing. We’re here to tell the stories behind the stories, the kind of thoughtful pieces that are the hallmarks of magazine journalism.

Urban Affairs is an online publication produced by Odvod Publishing Inc. Odvod has been publishing in Edmonton since 2006 and currently produces several print titles, including the award winning city magazine, Edify.

From City Hall to the community leagues, these are the stories that explore the issues in a way that go beyond the headlines. Sure, we all think Edmonton is a pretty good place to call home, but we shouldn’t be afraid to have conversations about ways we can improve the city, or view issues of the day from new perspectives.

What innovation project have you seen through in the last three year period?
The launch of the site (urbanaffairs.ca) itself has been a three-year endeavour. We saw a gap in the way that civic issues were being covered in the city, as the influence of the daily newspapers has waned. We wanted to create a source where the pieces felt like great magazine journalism, but also reflected the issues that matter to Edmonton.

We’re not afraid to incorporate cheek into our work, and we feel we’ve created a hybrid between current-events coverage, commentary and journalism.

What problem were you trying to solve?
We were trying to solve a gap in the way Edmonton’s civic issues were covered, with the constant shrinking of daily papers and local broadcast coverage.

Describe the Outcome
The site is still very much in a growth stage. Where we’ve noticed an impact is how much our stuff is influencing other news organizations to follow our leads, and the fact that it’s a must-read for many civic and community leaders (they tell us that). We are makijng an impact in the city, little by little.

How did this support your brand?
Well, the thing is, Urban Affairs, or UAF, IS the brand. And it’s all about getting more and more Edmontonians to recognize it as a source they want to connect with.

How did this project connect with your audience?
We’ve connected through social media, but the UrbanAF newsletter, which comes out on Fridays, is our way to really interact with a growing list of readers.