ANNOUNCEMENT: The Line expands, welcomes Rob Breakenridge
The Line: Alberta, with distinct news, columns and podcasts, to launch imminently; more expansion planned.
When The Line launched five years ago, we were determined to talk about the news, society, and current events from a Canadian perspective — but with a global view. The Line is a Canadian business, run by Canadians, but we never limited ourselves to just talking about Canada. We’re interested in political stories here, in the United States, and around the world. We’re interested in society, culture, and religion, and sports, and the internet. And those are the kinds of things we’ve talked with you about.
But some of our stories are absolutely rooted in a specific time and place. And lately, we’ve had more and more of those stories. That’s why we’ve decided to zoom in on some damned interesting areas and focus on telling those stories properly. That’s why we’re excited to announce the launch of our first provincial bureau: The Line: Alberta.
We’ve been talking about this for some time. It simply seems to us that there are too many interesting stories coming out of Alberta these days to ignore — but we also recognize that they might not interest our entire national audience. That’s why we’ve created a standalone platform, owned and operated by your trusted editorial team at The Line, that will focus explicitly on Alberta. Unique stories. Unique columns. Unique podcasts. About Alberta, by Albertans.
We are especially honoured and excited to welcome Rob Breakenridge to The Line. Rob is a Calgary-based broadcaster and columnist. He has nearly 30 years of media experience, including over 20 years as a talk-show host with Corus Radio and 17 years as a weekly columnist with the Calgary Herald. Rob will continue to write columns for The Line, and will also be host of the new The Line: Alberta Podcast, which will premiere soon.
Over the coming days, we’ll begin the soft launch and rollout of all our new Alberta content. And we’re going to need your help to get the word out. We’ve now launched a specific webpage that will be home to all our Alberta coverage: alberta.readtheline.ca. And we'll be sharing our new podcast's details soon. Please sign up on the podcasting app of your choice as soon as we circulate those details, and to The Line’s YouTube channel, if you haven’t already.
How is this going to work for you? We've kept it as easy as possible. If you’re already a subscriber to The Line, you’ve been automatically enrolled in the new platform. But we completely understand that not all of you will want Alberta-specific content. Starting this week, we’ll trickle out a few introductory posts to that mailing list. And we’ll make it very easy for anyone who prefers not to receive Alberta content to opt out of our Alberta-specific content. Doing so will in no way affect your subscription to The Line’s main feeds. Nothing on that front will change, and for our paying subscribers, you won’t be double-billed.
We think you’re going to like what we’re doing with The Line: Alberta. We’ve already got some great content lined up, and we’ll start publishing it next week, once final setup is complete and we've run a few checks to make sure everything is working. We also hope to expand in a similar fashion to other regions of the country. Stay tuned for more on that.
But for now, please join us in welcoming Rob aboard and stay tuned for the first post from The Line: Alberta, which will contain more information about what's coming next.
— Matt Gurney and Jen Gerson
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Big fat loud Congratulation to The Line on the expansion !
Couple of thoughts:
- Breakenridge is a really solid addition to the team.
- There is a lot of content coming out of Alberta that is relevant to the country or at least neighboring provinces so I'm looking fwd to this.
- Will Rob cover stories out of Sask & Mb too?
- I know The Line is mostly political, but there are energy and indigenous issues with political overtones worth covering. It's not all about Smith and the UCP.
- Balance is important. Don't want to end up like the Alberta Report.