The Anglican Church of Canada has launched Anglican News Canada, an online news platform that allows readers to access the websites of the Anglican Journal and diocesan news outlets Faith Tides (Diocese of British Columbia) and Rupert’s Land News. The hope is that eventually most dioceses will have a presence on the platform.
The platform grew out of a review of General Synod communications presented at the Council of General Synod in 2013. The originally envisaged channel would have featured press releases and official communications from General Synod, but those will now remain on anglican.ca, and the project has continued to evolve through consultation with the dioceses.
Priorities for the dioceses included the ability to share local stories across the whole church, having one central news site rather than leaving each diocese to run its own, and providing dioceses whose budgets will not support the continuation of their print publications with a sustainable option for sharing news and stories.
Faith Tides and Rupert’s Land News are fully online and digital, with no print option (though a feature is in development that would allow visitors to easily download and print a PDF pamphlet of each issue), but the new platform isn’t intended to replace print editions of diocesan newspapers, and some of the diocesan publications that have signed up to develop their news site will continue with print.
The next round of publications slated for launch on the platform by the summer include The HighWay (Diocese of Kootenay), The Niagara Anglican, The Diocesan Times (Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island), and Anglican Life (dioceses in Newfoundland and Labrador). The dioceses of Ottawa, Edmonton and Athabasca will also be joining the platform but have not yet set a date for doing so.
Visit the new platform at anglicannews.ca.
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