Kiwi Catholic journo praises now-closed MercatorNet website

Carolyn Moynihan served as deputy editor of Mercator, formerly MercatorNet, from the early years of this century until 2018. She is listed as editor-at-large on the website.

Writing about the closure of the website last month, she stated that when MercatorNet was launched in 2005 to address human dignity issues “it was challenging, to say the least”.

“We were attempting to give people good arguments to bring to public debates about human life, the family, the role of the state, identity . . . Such fundamental realities can only be fully understood in the light of faith, of course, but there are a lot of reasonable things that can be said before invoking Christian beliefs and ethics. That is what we tried to do, and largely succeeded I believe.”

“For myself, writing articles quickly enough and finding other writers who could contribute was difficult,” she noted.

But most of the burden fell on editor Michael Cook, “whose vision and commitment has always kept the good ship Mercator afloat and sailing”.

“At the same time, there was a lot of goodwill among friends, bloggers and established columnists scattered around the world.”

Among those who contributed to MercatorNet over the years were New Zealanders “Marcus and Shannon Roberts [who] informed (and entertained) us with the demography blog for a decade, highlighting a population implosion that now everyone is talking about”.

Previously, Ms Moynihan worked for Zealandia in the 1970s and 1980s, and served as associate editor there for several years.

Mr Cook said that MercatorNet “made an impact on hearts and minds — our ultimate aim from the beginning. It was never going to be a profit-making venture”.

When MercatorNet started in 2005, “there were very few magazines on the Internet that appealed to the socially conservative segment of the market. By 2025 that number had exploded, especially after COVID”, Mr Cook said.

“As the technical quality of websites has improved, more and more money is needed to keep up with the competition. Our team studied our predicament carefully and concluded that we couldn’t afford to continue.”

The Mercator website will remain online as an archive for the next three years.

FULL STORY

Vale Mercator (By Carolyn Moynihan/Mercator)

So long and thanks for all the clicks (Mercator)