How about Mercury North?

Sven Wiener
I think The Mercury’s coverage of the pulp mill issue and various state government scandals has been excellent. Many northeast residents would gratefully help support a northern edition by shifting their advertising accounts to that paper rather than reluctantly using The Examiner.

THE Examiner certainly has bags of community ill-will chalked up which don’t help to tide it through such tough times when there is a competitor newspaper around to take over its business.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Michael Stedman might come back up to head The Mercury’s northern reporting operations. He’d certainly have plenty of knowledge regarding whom to cherry pick from The Examiner’s current crop of reporters.

Operators of the Mercury Newspaper may be unaware that the Examiner newspaper has alienated quite a few residents of northeast Tasmania, particularly those who are offended by involvement of the Launceston establishment in promoting the Tamar Valley pulp mill.

The Examiner is apparently financially struggling and now might be a good time for the Mercury to make inroads into capturing some of its market. With a lot of the Mercury’s main news articles now available online, its been quite easy for many northeast residents with internet access to see the bias and poor quality of The Examiner’s reporting. Those who have dealt directly with its reporters are also aware of the arrogance of many of its reporters.

Whilst change of editor at The Examiner to Fiona Reynolds has brought about some improvement, I think the bias has been particularly evident around election time and that’s where The Examiner manages to really damage the northeast community by keeping residents in the dark and misinforming them on important issues at a time when residents need to be making decisions about whom to choose for their future government elected members.

Newsprint is still the predominant means by which most residents keep uptodate regarding more complex issues.

I think The Mercury’s coverage of the pulp mill issue and various state government scandals has been excellent. Many northeast residents would gratefully help support a northern edition by shifting their advertising accounts to that paper rather than reluctantly using The Examiner.