A year after stepping down as editor-in-chief of The Daily Hive, Farhan Mohamed has returned to the publishing world, launching Overstory Media Group, an independent media company with a focus on quality, local, fact-based journalism and storytelling.
OMG is a partnership between CEO Mohamed and OMG executive chairman Andrew Wilkinson, a tech entrepreneur who co-founded Tiny, a Canadian technology holding company that owns businesses like MetaLab, Dribbble, Girlboss and WeCommerce.
Out of the gate, the media group has established a west-coast focused group of community news brands including Victoria-based Capital Daily, an investigative news portal; the Vancouver Tech Journal, a daily news hub and newsletter covering the city’s tech industry; the Fraser Valley Current, news coverage for Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Mission and the rest of the Fraser Valley; the Burnaby Beacon, a daily newsletter providing insight around stories that affect the Burnaby area; and Decomplicated, a daily newsletter and podcast that provide context around relevant Canadian headlines.
Wilkinson started the Capital Daily himself and brought it into the OMG fold, and Mohamed approached the other publications over the past year. Each had been subsisting for the most part, but additional resources and funding were required to trigger growth. Mohamed has been onboarding them over the past year, and is identifying additional opportunities moving forward. Across all brands, the new media group currently has approximately 70,000 subscribers.
“Community is in my blood,” Mohamed says of his desire to build a media company focused on local news coverage. “Even when I was younger I had my own newsletter that I would send out to the 200 to 300 people in my network. It was talking about stuff that was happening around us. And I’ve always had it in my mind that we are stronger together, and we all need something that connects us.” The opportunity, he says, is in local, but it’s more about community.
Over seven years, Mohamed helped grow Daily Hive from a passion project to a fully-operating newsroom across Canada reaching 6.5 million people monthly.
