Cannabis Wire | A New Standard for Covering a Multi-Billion Dollar Industry

The cannabis market is booming, yet it’s difficult to find an independent outlet focused on policy and investigative coverage.

It’s a fast-growing industry that, by most estimates, has already surpassed $6 billion in annual revenue in the US (more, it should be noted, than the annual GDP of 41 different countries). This figure is even more glaring when you consider that it’s projected to be a more than $50 billion industry within the next decade alone. Whether or not you support legalization isn’t the issue here. It’s the alarmingly low level of oversight for an industry with growing economic clout and a litany of (largely unknown) special interests lining up behind it.

So, it’s time to say hello to Cannabis Wire, Civil’s newest Newsroom.

Cannabis Wire comes from the duo of Nushin Rashidian and Alyson Martin, journalists who boast a collective nearly 20 years of experience covering the industry. They’re the co-authors behind A New Leaf, one of the first books about the legalization of cannabis in the U.S., have spoken about cannabis on TV (History Channel) and radio (WNYC), and written about cannabis for a number of publications, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, and the Guardian. Additionally, Rashidian is the Tow Center’s research lead for the Platforms and Publishers project. Martin is an adjunct professor of reporting at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Suffice to say, they know their stuff. So well, in fact, that they literally taught the definitive course on how to responsibly cover the cannabis industry (with Poynter).

“We’re promoting a more objective standard for responsibly covering the cannabis industry. Many people don’t realize the scope of it today, and the myriad ways it can affect them. That’s why we’re here.”

Both are quick to point out that there are a number of newsrooms that provide solid coverage of different aspects of the industry, especially at the local level. What the industry lacks is an outlet that provides a hybrid of deep, investigative features that tackle the complexities that come with legalization (e.g., the existing racial disparities in arrests for cannabis possession in America) and deep-dive industry reporting.

“Cannabis Wire is a natural extension from a decade-plus of work covering cannabis. We want to shed light on the massive impact that it’s making on American society. And it needs to be covered in a more impartial manner,” said Rashidian.

“We’re promoting a more objective standard for responsibly covering the cannabis industry. Many people don’t realize the scope of it today, and the myriad ways it can affect them. That’s why we’re here,” Martin added.

What both Rashidian and Martin want future readers to appreciate is the fact that cannabis — like tech, manufacturing, entertainment, etc. — is big business. Yet, it’s still often not covered that way. It’s still more of a passing curiosity, a taboo topic that many traditional outlets are still reticent to tackle in a serious manner. This leads to an accountability gap, and a lack of public awareness about the industry, and its primary stakeholders. It’s time for the conversation to evolve from “should America legalize cannabis?” to “America is legalizing cannabis… but how are we documenting and analyzing the policies and how that process is unfolding?”

Cannabis Wire will offer two types of subscriptions:

• Consumer-focused offering that will target those with a passing interest in the industry (“…parents concerned with edibles labels” and “… people that care about what’s happening in their backyards in states that have passed legalization initiatives” to name a few examples).
• Business-focused offering that will also include deeper-dive, policy-focused analyses that may be of particular interest to, among others, lawyers, agriculturists, lobbyists and those involved in ancillary businesses.

For the latest from Cannabis Wire, sign up for their mailing list here.

Cannabis Wire is looking for talent from far and wide — they’re especially interested in hearing from those diverse voices that exist outside of traditional media hubs — and in markets like Nevada, Oregon and rural California (to name a few) that have thriving, legal cannabis industries.

Interested in joining the Cannabis Wire team? Get in touch at editors(at)cannabiswire(dot)com.