A heartfelt thanks to the many businesses who have continued to communicate with their clients through our newspaper and website.
Even more heartfelt thanks go to the dozens of readers who have made a direct financial contribution over the past few weeks.
Every advertisement and donation helps us not only from an operating cost perspective, but it also sends us a very direct message that what we do matters, and you are prepared to support our efforts. We remain 100 per cent committed to keep our community updated on all the local initiatives to help our front line workers, seniors and other heroic acts of selflessness.
Today, we here at The Estevan Mercury are facing unprecedented challenges, as you all are. We have taken drastic efforts to curtail our expenses and all of our staff members have taken part in one way or another.
Our operations have been supported primarily by the local and regional businesses that have been advertising to our audience for 117 years. That model is challenged in today’s world. Nearly 50 per cent of all advertising in Canada now goes to the duopoly of Facebook and Google. We, as an industry, are challenged to keep Canadian journalists employed and doing their jobs, telling your stories and providing the facts that you rely on us for.
Community news media organizations like ours are the glue that binds us together as a community. Our content truly reflects the community that we serve.
We have now implemented an online donation mechanism on our website, https://support.estevanmercury.ca/, to make it easy for our supporters, readers and community members to support us with direct contributions. Your contribution will be put toward ensuring our ability to continue to serve our community, here in Estevan and surrounding areas. Please consider the value that we add to our community and your own enjoyment of life here.
We will continue to tell compelling stories about your neighbourhood and the incredible people that make our community so special.
You will find a direct link to our donation page here: https://support.estevanmercury.ca/. If you prefer to drop a cheque in the mail or would like to discuss your contribution directly with me, please do. I’m at dtarnes@estevanmercury.ca.
Finally, I want to finish by thanking you all for reading our stories in print and online. It is through our strong audience engagement that we create value for our advertisers and sponsors. However in today’s world we all need to do more to ensure that news continues to be available, reliable and truthful. Please do what you can.
Sincerely,
Deanna Tarnes, Publisher, Estevan Mercury
