Overstory Media Group was established in 2021 by Farhan Mohamed and Andrew Wilkinson. Mohamed began his career in publishing in 2012 at the
Vancity Buzz, a Vancouver-based blog, becoming its managing editor in 2014. Starting with ten outlets in British Columbia and Alberta, the company announced plans to establish 50 new outlets and employ 250 more journalists by 2023. In April 2022, OMG acquired
The Coast, a Halifax-based weekly. Later that year, the company acquired
The Georgia Straight, a Vancouver-based weekly. The previous owner of
The Georgia Straight, Media Central Corporation Inc., declared bankruptcy in March 2022. Roughly a dozen employees of the newspaper were fired as OMG assumed ownership. In December 2022, OMG laid off three journalists: one at
The Coast and two at
Capital Daily. Three of those journalists were members of a union organizing committee working with
CWA Canada to unionize OMG. On 6 June 2024, CIRB ruled in favour of the company, finding that "Overstory is a written news organization that operates a series of publications in three provinces. Its normal and habitual activities do not involve interprovincial communications and broadcasting. ... The presumption of provincial jurisdiction has not been rebutted, and the Board does not have jurisdiction over Overstory's labour relations." ==Operations==