About The Sprawl

The Sprawl

The Sprawl is an independent online news outlet based in Calgary, Alberta, covering the city's news and politics through a mix of written journalism and audio. Launched in 2017 by journalist Jeremy Klaszus as a temporary "pop-up journalism" project covering the Calgary municipal election, it outlived its planned expiry date and grew into a permanent, reader-supported publication. A founding member of Press Forward, the Canadian association of independent media publications, and a partner publisher in the Indiegraf news startup network, The Sprawl represents a new model for local news: small, membership-funded, and deeply rooted in its city.

Overview

The Sprawl covers Calgary news and politics with a focus on the municipal decisions that shape daily life: city council, the municipal budget, development, transit, and the civic issues that rarely get sustained attention elsewhere. Its journalism appears in written form on its website and in audio form through Sprawlcast, a collaboration with the University of Calgary student radio station CJSW 90.9 FM, broadcast as both a podcast and a radio show with new episodes uploaded once or twice a month. The outlet is supported by reader memberships rather than advertising — a model that frees its journalism from commercial pressure and ties its survival directly to the value readers place on it.

History

The Sprawl launched on September 18, 2017, on Facebook, Twitter, and the digital publishing platform Medium, as a "pop-up journalism" project covering the 2017 Calgary municipal election. Founder Jeremy Klaszus — a Calgary journalist — wrote in an introductory article that he created The Sprawl not to publish in perpetuity, but to "be set up and taken down at specific times, tied to specific themes or events." The concept was borrowed from the pop-up newsroom experiments emerging in the mid-2010s: temporary publications, organized around a single event or theme, that could focus journalistic energy without the overhead of permanence.

The Sprawl's first iteration concluded in October 2017, after the election. But the response convinced Klaszus to keep going. Rather than taking the project down as planned, he decided to focus on building the publication and preparing for a second edition. On November 21, 2017, The Sprawl announced its second edition would focus on the Calgary municipal budget debate — the unglamorous but consequential process by which the city allocates its resources.

The turning point came in April 2018, when The Sprawl was one of five media startups selected for the inaugural Digital News Innovation Challenge — a program run by Facebook, the DMZ, and the Ryerson University School of Journalism (now Toronto Metropolitan University). Participating startups received $100,000, as well as $50,000 in Facebook marketing. Klaszus used the funding to launch The Sprawl's website and to begin paying contributors for articles and illustrations — transforming the project from a one-person operation into a real, if small, newsroom.

Recognition followed. In May 2019, The Sprawl was recognized for general excellence in digital publishing in the small division at the 2019 Digital Publishing Awards. The judges called the outlet "refreshing" and praised its website for providing a "satisfying mobile experience and smart audio" — validation that the pop-up experiment had become a serious publication.

The Sprawl continued to operate with Klaszus as its sole employee until September 2020, when the outlet hired assistant editor Ximena González. In November of the same year, membership editor Miranda Martini and municipal politics reporter Jeremy Appel were also hired — the first real newsroom, small but dedicated. The Sprawl also experienced a membership boom in 2020: in an interview, Klaszus said the outlet's membership base "nearly doubled" in the first ten months of the year, as readers sought out independent local journalism during the pandemic and its associated civic crises.

Content and Editorial Approach

The Sprawl's journalism is defined by depth over speed. Rather than chasing every headline, the outlet invests in the stories that require time: investigations into municipal decisions, explainers that make the budget comprehensible, and analysis that connects the dots between council votes and neighbourhood consequences. The municipal focus is deliberate and strategic: city hall is where the decisions closest to daily life get made — zoning, transit, policing, parks, property taxes — yet municipal politics receives a fraction of the coverage devoted to federal and provincial affairs. The Sprawl's bet is that this coverage gap is both a democratic problem and a journalistic opportunity: that Calgarians are hungry for serious reporting on the government they interact with most. The pop-up origins shaped the editorial DNA — each "edition" has a theme, a focus, a reason for existing — even as the publication became permanent.

Sprawlcast, the audio collaboration with CJSW 90.9 FM, extends the journalism into a second medium. The University of Calgary's student radio station provides the broadcast platform; The Sprawl provides the reporting. New episodes arrive once or twice a month as both podcast and radio show, bringing the outlet's municipal coverage to audiences who prefer listening to reading.

Coverage and Audience

The Sprawl covers Calgary — a city of more than 1.3 million people, the economic engine of Alberta, and a place whose municipal politics have outsized consequences for the province and the country. Its audience is engaged Calgarians: the citizens who attend council meetings (or wish they could), the activists, the policy wonks, the neighbours who want to understand why their street is being torn up or their taxes are going up. The membership model means the audience is also the funder — a relationship that creates accountability in both directions.

Role in Independent Media

The Sprawl is a founding member of Press Forward, the Canadian association of independent media publications — a collective effort by the country's indie outlets to advocate for their shared interests in a media landscape dominated by legacy corporations and platform giants. It is also a partner publisher in Indiegraf, the news startup network that provides technology, business support, and community to independent local news ventures. These affiliations place The Sprawl at the centre of the movement to rebuild local news in Canada from the ground up: not by rescuing the old models, but by inventing new ones. The pop-up that refused to take itself down has become a case study in how independent local journalism can survive — one membership, one edition, one city at a time.

Ownership

The Sprawl was founded by journalist Jeremy Klaszus in 2017 and remains an independent, reader-supported publication. Klaszus led the outlet as its sole employee through its first three years before building a small team in 2020. The membership-funded model — readers paying directly for the journalism — keeps the outlet independent of corporate ownership, advertising pressure, and government subsidy.

Digital Presence

The Sprawl publishes at sprawlcalgary.com, the website launched with the 2018 Digital News Innovation Challenge funding and maintained as the outlet's permanent home after the pop-up era ended. The site was designed mobile-first — the judges at the 2019 Digital Publishing Awards specifically praised its "satisfying mobile experience" — reflecting the reality that most readers encounter the journalism on their phones. Sprawlcast extends the brand into audio, distributed as a podcast and broadcast on CJSW 90.9 FM. The digital presence is deliberately focused: a website, a podcast, and the social channels that drive discovery — everything the outlet needs, nothing it doesn't.