Another small-town weekly newspaper closed its doors earlier this month, victim to the challenging environment that print journalism has found itself in since the arrival of the internet.
Most people outside of southeastern Saskatchewan probably don’t know that the Estevan Mercury stopped publishing in early January after 122 years in business.
It’s just one of several newspaper closures that have occurred on the Prairies over the last few years and gone relatively unnoticed by the outside world.
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However, this closure hit home for me, and for two reasons.
One, it was my hometown paper, chronicling the events that shaped the community in which I grew up.
And two, I worked there as a reporter for a year in the mid-1980s following graduation from journalism school.
I have fond memories of my time there, even though reporting on the friends of my parents could sometimes be a bit hair raising.
I learned a lot during that year about how important newspapers are to smaller Prairie communities.
And now the Mercury is gone, it’s role in Estevan filled by online options.
While thinking about this development, I came to a rather shocking realization — all three newspapers at which I worked before joining the Western Producer in 1986 are no longer in business.
That brought me up short.
My very first newspaper job out of journalism school was the Battleford Telegraph, a weekly rival to the longer established North Battleford News Optimist in The Battlefords, Sask.
It was there that I made my first mistakes as a reporter and experienced my first triumphs.
Some of the lessons I learned there have remained with me ever since.
Alas, the Telegraph no longer publishes.
Then I spent a year at the Mercury before joining the Moose Jaw Times-Herald in Moose Jaw, Sask. It was a daily and was definitely a step up from the two weeklies where I had previously worked.
Unfortunately, it was closed in 2017 after 128 years in business, leaving a city of more than 30,000 people with no print newspaper.
It’s definitely a sign of the times, but fortunately one that the Western Producer is defying.
The online era is in full gear, but a print version of the Producer still arrives in mailboxes across the Prairies every week — postal strikes notwithstanding.
We’re pretty darned proud of that.
