About PressProgress

PressProgress

PressProgress is a non-profit progressive news website based in Ottawa, Ontario — original, left-wing journalism launched in 2013 by the Broadbent Institute, the social-democratic think tank founded by former NDP leader Ed Broadbent. Describing its mission as "producing original, progressive journalism that holds Canada's rich and powerful accountable," PressProgress reports on social and economic equality, environmental sustainability, and democracy, with a critical focus on conservative politicians, corporate power, and right-wing media — and its investigative reporting has earned national journalism honours, including the 2024 Arnold Amber Award for Investigative Journalism from Canadian Journalists for Free Expression for editor Luke LeBrun.

Overview

PressProgress is an online news organization headquartered in Ottawa, publishing original reporting and critical analysis from a progressive perspective. It was launched in 2013 as a project of the Broadbent Institute — the think tank founded by Ed Broadbent, who led the federal New Democratic Party from 1975 to 1989, to support social democracy and policy innovation. The site's journalism prioritizes topics its editors say are under-covered by mainstream outlets and matter to a progressive readership and the public interest: social and economic equality, environmental sustainability, democracy — and critical scrutiny of fiscal and social conservative actors and ideas.

In its own description, PressProgress was launched as a counter-balance to corporate ownership in Canadian media and the growing influence of right-wing think tanks: a progressive answer to the well-funded conservative media infrastructure. It operates as a non-profit, supported through the Broadbent Institute, which is itself funded by donations from individuals and unions such as the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the United Steelworkers. Its website is pressprogress.ca, and it publishes the PressProgress Sources podcast.

The site's editor is Luke LeBrun, whose investigative reporting for PressProgress earned the Arnold Amber Award for Investigative Journalism from Canadian Journalists for Free Expression in 2024 — one of the country's significant honours for investigative work. Its reporters have included Ontario reporter Eric Wickham and labour reporter Emma Arkell.

History

PressProgress was launched in 2013 by the Broadbent Institute, which had been founded two years earlier to advance social-democratic policy in Canada. The launch reflected a diagnosis shared across the progressive movement: that Canada's media landscape was dominated by corporate-owned outlets and that the right had built an effective infrastructure of think tanks and media properties, while the left lacked a comparable journalistic voice. PressProgress was conceived as that voice — a news site that would do original reporting from progressive premises rather than merely commenting on the news others produced.

The site's early years established its method: access-to-information requests, document-driven investigations, and accountability reporting aimed at Conservative politicians, corporate lobbyists, and right-wing advocacy groups. In 2017, Canadaland's Jesse Brown devoted a podcast episode to the site, interviewing editor Luke LeBrun and writer-producer Luke Savage and questioning the claim that there were no formal links between the federal NDP and the Broadbent think tank — pointing to stories that ran parallel to NDP talking points and never criticized the NDP. LeBrun and Savage responded that they used traditional tools of journalism: access-to-information requests, fact-checking, and seeking comment from politicians.

In 2019, Canadaland included PressProgress in its "Guide to new popular, populist political media," profiling six relatively new startups — alongside The Nectarine, North99, Ontario Proud, The Post Millennial, and SpencerFernando.com — as operations "looking to sway voters in the lead-up" to the federal election and growing more influential in shaping political discourse. The series described PressProgress as regularly reporting critical stories about Conservative politicians, business, and media organizations associated with right-wing politics — a characterization the site's supporters would embrace as its mission statement.

The Broadbent Institute's own profile has grown alongside the site's: its annual Progress Summit convenes progressive policymakers, elected officials, and activists, and founder Ed Broadbent — who died in 2024 — was given a state funeral, the first such honour for a party leader who had been neither prime minister nor leader of the opposition. PressProgress continues as the Institute's journalistic arm, publishing through successive federal and provincial election cycles.

Content and Coverage

PressProgress produces original reporting and critical analysis, with an emphasis on investigations that hold the powerful to account. Its coverage areas include labour and workers' rights — the site employs a dedicated labour reporter — corporate influence on politics, the activities and funding of conservative advocacy groups and think tanks, environmental policy and the politics of climate action, democratic reform and electoral integrity, housing and affordability, and the intersections of economic inequality with race, gender, and immigration.

The site's investigative method centres on documents: access-to-information requests, leaked materials, financial disclosures, and the paper trails of lobbying and advocacy. Its reporting has repeatedly generated stories picked up by mainstream outlets — the mark of an accountability journalism operation whose scoops travel beyond its own readership.

The PressProgress Sources podcast extends the site's journalism into audio, with episodes on topics from housing encampments and Ontario legislation to Alberta separatism and the German far right — long-form conversations that place the site's reporting in broader political context.

The site's critical focus on conservative actors — politicians, parties, advocacy groups, and media — is its editorial signature: where mainstream outlets strive for balance across the political spectrum, PressProgress is explicit about its progressive premises and its adversarial stance toward the right.

Coverage and Audience

PressProgress serves a national progressive readership: the activists, union members, policy professionals, academics, and engaged citizens who constitute the audience for left journalism in Canada. Its readers include the labour movement — the site's labour reporting speaks directly to unionized workers and their organizations — environmentalists, social-justice advocates, and the NDP-aligned political community, as well as general readers seeking accountability reporting on corporate and conservative power.

The site's audience is national in scope but concentrated in the urban centres where progressive politics is strongest: Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. Its podcast and social media distribution — including TikTok, where its clips circulate — extend its reach to younger progressives who encounter its journalism outside the traditional news ecosystem.

As a non-profit, PressProgress's relationship with its audience is mission-driven rather than commercial: it writes for readers who share its premises about economic equality, environmental sustainability, and democracy, and who support journalism that holds the rich and powerful accountable.

Ownership

PressProgress is a project of the Broadbent Institute, the Ottawa-based think tank founded by Ed Broadbent. The Institute is funded by donations from individuals and unions, including the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the United Steelworkers, and describes itself as non-partisan but progressive. The site operates as a non-profit news organization within the Institute's structure.

The Broadbent Institute connection defines both the site's resources and its controversies: supporters see a necessary progressive counterweight to corporate media and right-wing think tanks; critics question the proximity of a news operation to a think tank associated with the NDP. The site's editors have consistently maintained that their journalism follows traditional reporting methods — documents, fact-checking, and seeking comment — whatever the premises from which it starts.

Digital Presence

PressProgress publishes online at pressprogress.ca, a digital-native news site with no print edition. The website carries the site's original reporting and analysis, organized for a readership that follows Canadian politics closely, and its journalism is distributed through newsletters, social media platforms, and the PressProgress Sources podcast.

The site's digital strategy reflects its audience: shareable investigations designed to travel on social media, podcast conversations for the audio-first news consumer, and the rapid-response reporting that the online news cycle rewards. For Canada's progressives, PressProgress remains what it was launched to be in 2013: the left's newsroom — original, investigative, and unapologetically progressive, holding the country's rich and powerful accountable one access-to-information request at a time.