Expect lots of election coverage, editor Monte Paulsen says.

Though its readership is relatively small when compared with competing newspapers such as The Vancouver Sun and The Province, The Tyee, an online daily news magazine based in Vancouver, has gained a lot of respect and credibility since it first launched five years ago. Focusing on politics, culture and life in British Columbia, The Tyee, a member of the British Columbia Association of Magazine Publishers (BCAMP), has broken several important news stories in the province and has attracted some of B.C.’s most talented veteran journalists to its reporting roster. Today, the publication launched a new blog called The Hook, partly in response to reader demand for more timely news coverage and commentary and quicker, shorter and more frequent posts.

Investigative editor Monte Paulsen, is overseeing the “superblog.” It’s called that, Paulsen notes, because “unlike most blogs which give you the work of one or two people, The Hook will publish quick, timely reports and analysis by seasoned Tyee journalists and a wide network of contributors.” Most posts will be around 200-300 words in length, Paulsen says. “It allows us to cover a lot of things that we  didn’t cover before.”

As a business initiative, the blog offers more pages to sell ads. Online “retail space” is a common challenge faced by online publishers, Paulsen says, because unlike print magazines, you can’t just add advertising-only pages. The blog gives marketers “another opportunity to make an impression,” Paulsen says.

According to editor and founder David Beers, The Tyee gets about 150,000 unique visitors per month. A redesign for the site is in the planning stages.

In the upcoming Sept/Oct issue of Masthead, we’ve selected The Tyee as one of five magazines that “punch above their weight.” The issue mails next week.