Sadly, another newspaper, this one in Canada, bites the dust. The last paper edition of the Guelph Mercury was delivered today to its 9,000 subscribers in Ontario. It began publishing as the Wellington Mercury in 1853.
Unfortunately, most folks, even fellow reporters, don’t seem to care. Companies, particularly media-oriented operations, have to remain relevant to last in the digital era.
I fear the same outcome for my hometown newspaper, which was absorbed into the Gannett empire years ago. Quality, in the writing and the design, has been an issue ever since. I’m an advocate of local ownership.
Hopefully that will be the end game for my hometown paper, which is how it all began, as two competing papers, the Capital Journal and the Oregon Statesman. I wrote a pointed letter to the editor about the subject perhaps a decade or so ago, which the paper’s editor refused to print. It wasn’t the first, and it won’t be the last. But more about that later.
ajh
AARON HILL’S NOTEBOOK 