CBC's Justin McElroy named to Vancouver Magazine's Power 50 list of city's most influential people
Municipal affairs reporter has become a household name for many during the pandemic
CBC's Justin McElroy has been named one of Vancouver's 50 most influential people in an annual ranking by Vancouver Magazine.
Members of the Power 50, which ranks the city's most influential people in politics, technology, education, business and more, are chosen by a panel of industry insiders and experts.
The panel chose McElroy, an award-winning municipal affairs journalist and columnist, for his work on the COVID-19 pandemic. That work includes consistently pressuring health and government authorities for more data about the virus, and using the data he could extract to produce graphs and charts to accurately reflect the COVID-19 reality in B.C.
Vancouver Magazine, in its article announcing the winners, describes McElroy as an authority on the biggest issue in a century for an entire generation of British Columbians who have turned to his Twitter account for critical news since spring 2020.
If you wanted to a bookmark a single page where all my <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVID19</a> charts for British Columbia will be constantly updated, it's now been created: <a href="https://t.co/nzl1W7E0Y5">https://t.co/nzl1W7E0Y5</a>
—@j_mcelroyHis data charts are consistently posted to Twitter and published online in CBC B.C.'s COVID-19 coverage.
"I'm grateful my work has given people a little bit more information to make a little sense of an incredibly stressful and confusing time," McElroy said when asked about his win.
Always the scrutinizing reporter, he added that he would prefer the province provided their data in a more accessible way so his work would not be so necessary.
But McElroy's Twitter has not just been a source of COVID-19 information for the past 20-plus months, it has also been a source of joy.
It is here that McElroy also presents his passion projects — ranking things and getting people to vote on them.
During the pandemic these have included B.C.'s best beer and best roadside attraction, Vancouver's best burgers and the top Disney tune. His most recent ranking project was a vote to name B.C.'s best song.
B.C.’s best song has been crowned. Our <a href="https://twitter.com/j_mcelroy?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@j_mcelroy</a> has been gathering online votes for the B.C. Song Bracket, which pits the province’s top songs against each other — and there can only be one winner. He breaks down the nail-biting final vote. <a href="https://t.co/rpsljDwkET">pic.twitter.com/rpsljDwkET</a>
—@cbcnewsbcIn 2020, the curious history buff visited and ranked more than 240 Metro Vancouver parks, providing detailed reviews of each when local exploring was the only entertainment people really had.
A veteran at the national broadcaster since 2016, McElroy joined the industry in 2012 after honing his journalism skills as editor of The Ubyssey newspaper at the University of British Columbia.
You can see and hear McElroy's work across all CBC British Columbia platforms, including his Metro Matters radio column every Wednesday morning at 8:10 a.m. on The Early Edition on 88.1 FM.
McElroy also publishes a weekly Metro Matters newsletter every Friday that gets into the nitty-gritty of Metro Vancouver politics. You can sign up to receive it here.
And of course, for the most up-to-date McElroy matters, keep an eye on his active Twitter account for the latest COVID news and, well, who knows what else.