Editorial: Merry Christmas – it’s been a hell of a year

This editorial is our final editorial for 2020, a year whose backside we’ll happily see out the door.

It has been our heaviest year of news coverage and our lowest year of revenue. Yeah, lots of businesses can undoubtedly say the same thing.

During the early days of COVID-19, we saw our coverage trying to keep you up to date on all the changes happening double. At the same time, our revenues have fallen by 50%, sometimes more.

It’s been tough covering the community through a pandemic. We’ve done our best to look for kernels of good news where they happened and where they could be found.

Whether that was interviews with local businesses, people who were winning awards, publishing books, or even driving around town in a Santa suit to bring a little joy, we’ve done what we could to share the good with the bad.

We’ve also tried to do what we could to give back to the community. Sadly, our second and third Family Movie events were cancelled, but we were able to do other things. We have provided free advertising for groups, lent equipment for the Remembrance Day live stream, and donated audio gear to the library to improve their videos. We also donated $4000, $1000 each to four community groups through some pro-bono work our marketing side – Soaring Pig Studios – did this fall.

Without advertisers, Morinville Online could not provide local news via MorinvilleNews.com and our Facebook page. We offer them our sincerest thanks for helping us fulfil our mission of keeping this community informed.

We also thank you, our readers, for keeping us informed and sharing our stories to keep the community informed.

We will be closed from Dec. 23 to Jan. 4 inclusive.

Merry Christmas to you all.

SD