How the Globe and Mail is covering the cannabis industry

Shan Wang of The Nieman Lab writes about how The Globe and Mail in Toronto plans to cover the cannabis industry when it becomes legal for recreational use.

Wang writes, “For The Globe and Mail, it’s an enormous business story that touches every part of its newsroom, from reporters in regional bureaus to the investigations team. Medical marijuana has been legal and regulated in Canada now for nearly two decades, and the Trudeau government had been making overtures around recreational legalization for some time.

“‘Our coverage evolved slowly at first, with the legalization of medical marijuana. We’d done some coverage around problems in the supply chain, and problems in quality of product. But I’d say we probably didn’t get really serious about covering the business of cannabis until early 2017, when the government’s timeline became clear,’ Derek DeCloet, who leads The Globe and Mail’s business coverage, told me. ‘More companies grew up, went public, got large. There were acquisitions. They made financing moves for their businesses. Activity increased markedly in 2016. So last year, we started to cover it more intensely.’ That included dedicating one reporter, Christina Pellegrini, entirely to the business of cannabis.

“‘To be honest, I don’t have the formula for you for how we’re organizing it,’ DeCloet said. ‘It’s a thing that has evolved quickly enough that we’ve also been doing things a little bit on the fly as well.'”

Read more here.