September 10, 2021

INN is delighted to welcome Anita Li as host of our monthly Info Sessions for Startups, which are designed to give journalism entrepreneurs a realistic picture of what it takes to launch a nonprofit news organization. Anita is also partnering with INN to offer strategic coaching to our members through The Other Wave, which provides a range of business- and audience-related services tailored for news organizations.

Most recently, Anita was director of communities at The Discourse, a disruptive new player in the Canadian media scene that fills in gaps in news coverage for underserved communities. She started her career as a reporter and editor at Canadian legacy publications, including The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail and CBC. After that, she worked in strategic, management-level roles at American digital media outlets, such as Complex, Fusion and Mashable. As a writer and reporter, she has been published in New York Magazine, Poynter, Policy Options and other publications across North America. 

Anita is an expert in community-driven journalism, audience engagement, news entrepreneurship, consumer revenue business models, newsroom diversity, media ethics and journalism innovation; she’s spoken on these topics in press interviews and at conferences worldwide. Anita has also consulted a wide range of journalism outlets and institutions, including CBC Manitoba, American Press Institute, Journalists for Human Rights, Toronto Public Library, Pink Triangle Press, Carleton University, Indiegraf, Liisbeth, Facebook Journalism Project’s Sustainability Accelerator, Google’s Project Oasis via Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers and Informed Opinions.

Anita is a member of the 2020-21 Online News Association board of directors, as well as an alum of the inaugural 2016 Poynter-NABJ Leadership Academy for Diversity in Digital Media. She also co-founded Canadian Journalists of Colour, a rapidly growing network of racialized media-makers in Canada, in 2018.

To keep up with Anita, subscribe to The Other Wave, her newsletter about challenging the status quo in journalism. And if you’re considering starting up a news organization, reserve your Info Sessions spot.