The mission of The Public Record is simple: to provide informed coverage of Hamilton’s communities and civic affairs to enable all residents to fulfill the responsibilities of citizenship by ensuring a more transparent, good civic government that is accountable to all residents of Hamilton.

Founded in 2014 by Hamilton independent journalist Joey Coleman, The Public Record is Canada’s first local crowdfunded news outlet, dedicated to high-quality public service journalism of Hamilton’s civic affairs and life.

The Public Record is based upon a simple idea: readers will fund and support high quality content that enables them to be informed engaged citizens.

The Public Record is funded by readers to fill the local media gap, without the pressures of corporate media to chase clicks instead of news. Because of reader support, we’re able to dedicate significant time and effort into deeply reporting and analyzing information.

As advocates for openness and transparency, all our work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. TPR publishes the source documents used in our reporting for readers who wish to become further informed and to ensure our work can be reviewed.

The Public Record thanks all readers who support our work, and is grateful for the support that enables this site to cover our Hamilton. Patrons have no control over our operations or editorial content.

Our full Code of Ethics and Journalistic Practice can be read here.