It's been three-and-a-half years since the Guelph Mercury last published, but for many people in our community, the loss feels as fresh today as it did on January 30, 2016. What a community looks like without a daily paper, and how it gets its news without that baseline has been a frequent topic of discussion, and it was again last week at the Guelph Civic Museum.
The Museum has two exhibits on now called “B&W and Read All Over" and “The Dailies: Front Pages & Frontispieces.” The former is about the Mercury itself, and the later reveals how the Mercury contextualized national and global events for local readers. For decades newspapers have provided this important context for our lives, but what do we do in a world with fewer and fewer newspapers?
This question, and many, many more, was put to a panel of local experts last Wednesday at the Guelph Civic Museum, and Guelph Politico's Adam A. Donaldson was one of them. Along with former Mercury and GuelphToday.com reporter Rob O’Flanagan, senior research associate at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and former Mercury journalist Stephanie MacLellan, Waterloo Region Record photojournalist Mathew McCarthy, graphic novelist and cartoonist Seth, there was a conversation about "Newspapers Past, Present and Future?” Former Guelph Mercury managing editor Phil Andrews moderated.
This week's podcast is the some 90-minute discussion that flowed from that question. The panel covered a wide variety of topics including what we lose with the closure of newspaper offices, the effect of losing community newspapers on our discourse and on our democracy, and what the future of local journalism might look like and how we’re going to pay for it.
So let's talk about the past, present and future of local media on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!
“B&W and Read All Over“ and “The Dailies: Front Pages & Frontispieces” can be found at the Guelph Civic Museum during business hours - Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm - from now until September.
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify.
Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.
End Credits #Repeat - January 17, 2024
GUELPH POLITICAST #Repeat – A-Salt on the Water
Open Sources Guelph #Repeat - January 11, 2024
End Credits #328 - January 10, 2024 (Indiana Jones 4 & 5)
GUELPH POLITICAST #Update
Open Sources Guelph #457 - January 4, 2024
End Credits #327 - January 3, 2024 (Indiana Jones Original Trilogy)
GUELPH POLITICAST #404 – 2023: Year in Review
Open Sources Guelph #456 - December 28, 2023
End Credits #326 - December 27, 2023 (Top 5 of 2023)
GUELPH POLITICAST #403 – 2023: The Lousy Clip Show
Open Sources Guelph #455 - December 21, 2023
End Credits Holiday Special - December 20, 2023
GUELPH POLITICAST #402 – Christmas With Mark
Open Sources Guelph #454 - December 14, 2023
End Credits #325 - December 13, 2023 (The Boy and the Heron)
GUELPH POLITICAST #401 - How the Greenbelt Was Won
Open Sources Guelph #453 - December 7, 2023
End Credits #324 - December 6, 2023 (It’s A Wonderful Knife)
GUELPH POLITICAST #400 – The Last Man on the Mercury
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