GUELPH POLITICAST #400 – The Last Man on the Mercury

It makes sense to take some time now to talk about the media picture here in Guelph, and across Canada. While the Government of Canada reached a deal last week with Alphabet, the parent company of Google, to help fund the Online News Act there are still a lot of people in the news business who are going to be laid off at the end of the month including staff at the Guelph Mercury Tribune. But one person remains...

It’s fitting that this topic has come up for the 400th episode of this show. When the daily Guelph Mercury closed down in January 2016, Guelph Politico was in the process of transforming from a personal expression of Guelph political stuff to something a little more formal. When the old Merc closed on January 29, 2016 uncertainty weighed on many people in the community; what would happen to daily news coverage in the city? What would happen to the Mercury’s vast community and institutional knowledge?

Some of those issues were resolved when Metroland tagged the weekly Guelph Tribune paper with the "Mercury" branding, and though it wasn’t the same as a daily paper, the small cadre of Tribune tributes persevered. For a time. In September, Metroland announced that in an effort to stave off bankruptcy they were cutting print editions of those weekly papers plus 60 per cent of their workforce. They also left a lot of unanswered questions, even for the staff members that were sticking around.

On this week’s edition of the podcast were joined by Guelph Mercury Tribune reporter Graeme McNaughton who will help us parse some of those questions. He will talk about how it’s going these days on the job, what the current editorial structure looks like, and whether or not he’s privy to the corporate strategy at Metroland as it’s trying to restructure. He will also talk about his plans for being the last man on the Mercury, how much of a say he’ll have about what he covers, and whether or nor he has any regrets. 

So let's talk about the news on this 400th episode of the Guelph Politicast!

You can read Graeme McNaughton's work at the Guelph Mercury Tribune. You can also follow him @iamgmcnaughton on Twitter, Mastodon, Blue Sky and Threads, and you can send him a tip or message to gmcnaughton [at] guelphmercurytribune.com.

(And on the occasion of this 400th episode let me just say to everyone thanks for listening! I’m always amazed and humbled when someone tells me that they listen to this show at work or while commuting, and that’s the kind of feedback that keeps me going, and will hopefully keeping me going though to 500 episodes this time in two years.)

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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.