Thanks for the support

Posted by Phil Andrews

On behalf of our newsroom team, I would like to thank the scores of folks for their expressions of support since news of the Mercury's closure broke.

We have been touched, floored and very moved by all the messages. The volume is staggering.

I'm told the final edition of the paper is proving a popular sell with advertisers. We're working to develop a final paper with impact too.

Again, many thanks. It has been an honour to serve this community as the editor of the Mercury.

Comments

[Jojo]

Thank you, Phil, to you, your team and all staff members for doing your best to put together a newspaper that serves the interest of the local community. Having worked there for many years, until I moved on a few years ago, I know how everyone did their best every day. I also know how much the community will miss their local voice.

[Steve P]

Thanks Phil and Mercury team, past and present, for all the hard work you've done to report on our city. 149 years of excellence is disappearing Friday. Sad day for this city.

[Pierre Dore]

Dear Phil,it has been a pleasure to have been given the opportunity to explore my artistic (and at times cynical) views and to have had a forum in which to present them. Over the years, it has been a mostly pleasant ride through Guelph's political and social landscapes, with a few questionable moments of dubious notoriety thrown in for good measure. Over 630 editorial cartoons published! Who would have thought that fourteen years+ ago, when I was hired by the late Bonnie Ewen over the telephone, I would be saying goodbye to the Thursday noon deadline?... at times racking my right brain cells to come up with an idea, a drawing and a finished product worthy of publication. Most times, I made the deadline... others, the final drawing proved to be a little too edgy or obscure, and required some tweaking - or a complete overhaul! And the too few times it caused a twinge of reaction from readers and critics, eliciting harsh comments or legal action, the editors at the Mercury took it all in stride and assured me that it was all part of the editorial process. Thank you to all the editors who have tolerated my questions, requests for ideas and clarifications. And thank you all for supporting an encouraging the process. To the recent critic who thought it was time to throw me to the curb, please make sure I am tossed into the RECYCLE bin... not the trash. Regards, Pierre Dore, cartoonist

[Edward Pickersgill]

This is the worst news I've read in the Mercury ever. The local impact will of course be major and at the same time put us in mind of the downside of decades of mergers and acquisitions now descending into austerity measures across the globe.

[elizabeth davidson]

The Mercury will be missed. It is a sad indication of the spread of globalization. So sorry for the employees & their families, including generations of children whose first job was to deliver the newspaper. My own son's first attempt at being responsible was in delivering the paper. It was also always a thrill for my children to see their name or picture in the newspaper. Sadly, traditions continue to vanish.

[chrisman]

Very sad indeed to lose our daily read. The paper has had its ups and downs over the 32 years I have been a reader and subscriber but the editorial pages were thought provoking and open to all and my favorite read of the day. I think Metroland is being too expedient in killing the voice of Guelph for the sake of the bottom line. I wish they had asked for my and the rest of the readers help to make the paper more profitable. We didn't know! Could we not have waited until the papers 150th year!

[Sue Rietschin]

I am feeling so blue without my Saturday paper! And somehow the KW Record is willing to take over my subscription. If the owners were really interested in Guelph and journalism, they would have found a way to have a Guelph bureau with some or all of the Mercury reporters as part of the KW Record. Why else would 9,000 if us take the Record? Never seen much news of Guelph in it before, don't expect to now.