About Journal des voisins

Journal des voisins

The Journal des voisins (JdV) is a Montreal hyperlocal news outlet serving the borough of Ahuntsic-Cartierville — a non-profit (OSBL) community newspaper founded in 2012 by local citizens, publishing daily web news six days a week and a free bimonthly print magazine distributed to 47,000 addresses throughout the borough. After the 2023 collapse of Métro Media — which shuttered the borough's other local paper, Métro Ahuntsic-Cartierville — the Journal des voisins became one of the last local media outlets in Montreal. Its survival and growth, against the headwinds destroying Quebec's local press, make it a case study in hyperlocal journalism's possibilities.

Overview

The Journal des voisins describes itself as an independent, community-based, professional daily of local information on the web — and a bimonthly print magazine, made by the residents of Montreal and Ahuntsic-Cartierville, for the residents of Ahuntsic-Cartierville. The print edition — surnamed "le Mag" — is distributed free, six times a year, to more than 47,000 addresses across the borough. The website publishes local news daily, Monday through Saturday, and a Saturday-morning newsletter summarizes the week's news with links to every article. Investigative articles are part of the outlet's DNA: the JdV prioritizes original reporting and accountability journalism at the borough level — the council decisions, the development projects, the community conflicts that the metropolitan press doesn't cover.

History

The Journal des voisins was founded in 2012 by citizens of Ahuntsic-Cartierville — a grassroots creation, born from the conviction that the borough needed its own voice. The timing was audacious: Quebec's local weeklies were in crisis, with the Centre d'études sur les médias documenting that a third of local weeklies disappeared between 2015 and 2020. In Montreal, the situation was even more acute — the borough's local papers competed with the metropolis's many other media, and the advertising revenues sustaining the weeklies were collapsing.

Against this backdrop, the JdV's growth was remarkable. Where the commercial weeklies faltered, the non-profit model — sustained by subscriptions, donations, advertising, and the community's support — proved resilient. The decisive moment came in 2023: Métro Media, publisher of the borough's other local paper (Métro Ahuntsic-Cartierville, formerly the Courriers Ahuntsic and Bordeaux-Cartierville), suspended its operations on August 11, 2023, with bankruptcy officialized the following month. Overnight, the Journal des voisins became the borough's only local media — and one of the last in all of Montreal.

Content and Editorial Approach

The JdV covers Ahuntsic-Cartierville in the round: the borough council and its decisions (the zoning changes, the budgets, the contracts), urban planning and development (the projects reshaping the borough's streets and skyline), the environment (the Rivière des Prairies riverbanks, the parks, the green spaces, the ecological corridors), culture and community life (the festivals, the artists, the community organizations), education (the schools serving the borough's families), mobility (the transit, the cycling infrastructure, the traffic), and the social issues affecting the borough's diverse neighborhoods — from the historic Sault-au-Récollet village to the commercial arteries of rue Fleury and boulevard Lajeunesse, from the quiet residential streets to the social-housing complexes.

The investigative emphasis distinguishes the JdV from the community-bulletin model that characterizes much hyperlocal media. The outlet pursues accountability reporting on local power — the council decisions, the public money, the development deals, the conflicts of interest — with the rigor of a metropolitan daily applied to the borough scale. This is the journalism that justifies the non-profit model: not the press releases and the event listings (though those have their place), but the original reporting that holds local power to account and gives residents the information they need to participate in their borough's governance. The FPJQ job postings — seeking journalists to cover the borough under the web desk chief and editor-in-chief, producing two to three texts weekly with wide autonomy — reflect a real newsroom, not a volunteer bulletin.

The podcasts — "les balados du Journal des voisins" — extend the journalism into audio: intimate conversations with borough residents, from an itinerant recounting his journey to artists recalling the pivotal encounters that shaped their work, all connected to Ahuntsic-Cartierville's current events. The print magazine, distributed free six times yearly to 47,000 addresses, offers the longer-form treatment: the investigations, the portraits, the in-depth analyses that deserve paper and the time to be read slowly.

Coverage and Audience

The Journal des voisins serves Ahuntsic-Cartierville — one of Montreal's most populous and diverse boroughs, spanning the north of the island from the Rivière des Prairies to the metropolitan's northern edge. The audience is the borough's residents: the families, the seniors, the newcomers, the community organizers, the local elected officials — everyone with a stake in the borough's future. The 47,000-copy print distribution ensures the journalism reaches beyond the digital divide: the seniors, the less-connected, the residents who encounter the paper in their mailbox rather than their feed.

Organization

The Journal des voisins is a non-profit organization (organisme à but non lucratif), governed by a proactive board of directors and led by publisher Simon Van Vliet and editor-in-chief Stéphane Desjardins — the latter with a long track record in hyperlocal media. The team numbers around twenty employees and freelance contributors: journalists, editors, photographers, web staff, and the team sustaining the print and digital operations. The newsroom is located at 9320 boulevard Saint-Laurent in Montreal — in the heart of the borough it serves, among the residents it writes for. The non-profit structure — and the community ownership it implies — is central to the JdV's identity: the paper belongs to the borough, not to shareholders.

Business Model

The JdV's business model combines the revenue streams available to non-profit community media: print advertising (sold to the borough's businesses), digital advertising, subscriptions and donations from readers, and the institutional support available to Quebec community media. The free print distribution — 47,000 copies, six times yearly — is the advertising vehicle: the borough's businesses reach every household, sustaining the journalism. The model's resilience, proven through the 2023 Métro Media collapse, demonstrates that community ownership and diversified revenue can sustain local journalism where the commercial weeklies failed.

Role in Montreal's Media Landscape

The Journal des voisins's significance extends beyond Ahuntsic-Cartierville. In a Montreal where the local press has been decimated — the August 2023 Métro Media suspension eliminating the borough weeklies across the city, with bankruptcy officialized the following month — the JdV stands as proof that hyperlocal journalism can survive and even thrive. The Projet J podcast's examination of the outlet framed the question directly: how does the JdV pull through in a context where a third of Quebec's local weeklies disappeared between 2015 and 2020? The answer — community ownership, the non-profit model, investigative journalism that gives readers a reason to care, and the print-digital combination — offers a template for local news elsewhere. For the borough's residents, the JdV is something rarer: a paper that treats their streets, their council, their neighbors as worthy of serious journalism.

Digital Presence

The Journal des voisins publishes at journaldesvoisins.com, with daily web news, the Saturday newsletter summarizing the week, and the print magazine available online. The social media presence extends the borough coverage to the platforms where residents gather. For Ahuntsic-Cartierville, the JdV is the local paper: the daily record of the borough's life, the watchdog of its council, and the community's mirror — independent, professional, community-owned, and rooted in the streets it covers.