Journalism Students Create New Publication: The Undercurrent

The Undercurrent (external link)  is a new publication created by Journalism students Kayla Solway and Sofie Gelder that aims to amplify stories of sustainability, environmental issues and community.

The two shared a passion for long-form stories and features about the environment and community.

Solway pitched the idea to Gelder as she knew their interests aligned and trusted her writing style and editing.

“We really wanted to emphasize these community and environmental stories, but also really get to know our sources and the people that we talked to,” Solway explained. “We try to meet them in person when we can and really get to know them, so we can share their stories with our readers.”

Gelder said yes right away when Solway asked her to be a co-founder.

At the beginning of third-year, Gelder thought about where she wanted to contribute and earn bylines this school year, but that changed when the founding process began.

“The opportunity to build something from the ground up and see how that process goes when you're able to customize it fully yourself, collaboration is the fundamental aspect,” Gelder said. “The Undercurrent, it's collaboration, but turned up a hundred notches because it's constant collaboration and discussion about every single thing from domain to aesthetics to layout and photos.”

The co-founders are also tackling writing, photographers, web design, and responding to feedback.

“It's a lot in one role and I'd say that's how it started off and that's how it's still going,” Gelder said.

Solway said their publication takes inspiration from The Narwhal, The Green Line and other community-centred publications.

They had a vision for their website, but to put it into play, Solway had to learn website design and layout.

“I tried so many different platforms, and we finally settled on one and really made it our own. We had someone take photos for it, which was really fun,” she said. “It came together with how we imagined it to be.”

The publication runs under the theme of environmental sustainability and community.

“When you're looking in that lens, this whole world opens up within your community and all these moments and people who are working to make their community a better place…it's really focused on an undertone of positivity that we always want to be there in our stories,” Gelder said.

The two have also been working hard to reach people outside of the University.

Solway said, “Continuing to network, continuing to post on Instagram is always helpful, and continuing to put stories out that are quality over quantity is really important to us and will help us to grow.”

The Undercurrent’s first article showed what they wanted to do through the publication, combining community and environment.

It was an article about people who live on boats (external link)  in Ontario.

Gelder also published a waste-free focused (external link)  story.

She said that J-school has shown her how to describe people in a complete way, which she has carried to The Undercurrent.

Gelder said, “That's the most powerful part of journalism and feature writing is when you can really get to know someone based on words and even photos.”

The two co-founders did a challenge (external link)  to go with the story, where they went waste-free for a week.

“We documented it all on Instagram through Reels, through time-lapse, photography and our own personal notes,” Solway shared.

Gelder’s advice for other students interested in starting their own project is to really consider your partnership. Ask yourself questions such as “What skills do I bring to the table?” “What gaps am I missing?”

She added, “Kayla and I work really well together, we’re very different people with different skills and strong suits.”

The publication's editor, Jacob Sillick, is a Psychology student at TMU.

One of their favourite moments since launching the publication was when they published their first article together.

“We were with Jacob for five hours in a cafe, Mast Coffee, near campus, and really just took it over and were refining and reworking,” she said. “For our first article, we wanted to make sure it was perfect…Getting to press publish was such a big moment for us.”