The Tyee is launching The Tyee Investigative Fellowships and The Tyee Solutions Fellowships.

An excerpt from the fellowship page:

Here is what your donations will allow us to achieve. Beginning today The Tyee is accepting applications (Fellowship Application PDF) from independent journalists wanting to dig deep into problems faced by British Columbians, or wanting to report on promising solutions to the challenges we share in this province. While the research and reporting must relate directly to BC, the subject matter is open, and may include education, the environment, human rights, economics, workplace rights and safety, poverty, or ethics in science, business or politics.

Fellowship applications, which are due April 9th, will be reviewed by an independent advisory panel who will select the four strongest. Each journalist will receive $5000 to produce a series of at least three stories which will run on The Tyee and possibly in other publications.

First of all, kudos to The Tyee for doing this.

Secondly, Toronto, by and large, hasn't done too badly. We can all agree it's a fairly well-off city. Some of the "alt" newspapers here have made a fair buck off massage parlour and escort ads.

My question is this: Has any "alt" publication tried to establish a similar fellowship program here to fund some journos to take a serious look at the problems facing Ontario?

I can't think of one in the more than five years I've lived here.