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Mercury welcomes new reporter

My name is William Acri and I am the new reporter for the Estevan Mercury. Moving out west for work is something a lot of my friends in Acton, Ont., would say when they were about to take part in Canada’s natural resource industry.
William Acri
New Mercury reporter William Acri

My name is William Acri and I am the new reporter for the Estevan Mercury. Moving out west for work is something a lot of my friends in Acton, Ont., would say when they were about to take part in Canada’s natural resource industry.  For me moving out west meant finally getting a full-time job as a reporter.

I moved from Acton, Ont. a few days ago to live and work in Estevan. Acton is a small town in southern Ontario. Similar to Estevan, Acton was also an industry-based community. The recession that started in 1987 brought an end to the last of the industrial employers in my town.  Acton is now a bedroom community because most of the people who live there work in Toronto.  

I graduated from Loyalist College in 2016 with a diploma in photojournalism. After graduation, myself and many other students quickly found out that the market for journalists in Ontario is oversaturated. I personally always liked community reporting and since I do not have a passion for living in big cities, I was very excited when I received a call to work at the Estevan Mercury.  

My trip from Acton to Estevan was intended to be a carefully planned and uneventful trip.  I arrived in Wawa, Ont. on the night of Oct. 25.  I went to sleep that night not knowing I was on the edge of the first snowstorm of the year. I did arrive safely in Estevan but the trip ended up being a lot more interesting than I had anticipated.

Ever since I was young I had a passion for photography. I got my first camera when I was 10 and it was a No. 2A Brownie Box camera that used 120 film. A few years later I had upgraded to a Pentax Spotmatic with interchangeable lenses. That camera allowed me to start learning how to take professional photos.  The more photos I took, the more I realized what I was doing with my photos was storytelling. Because of this I began to seriously think about a career in journalism and I am very happy to finally achieve a dream that I was never really sure was even possible.