Illawarra Mercury

The Illawarra Mercury is a daily newspaper serving the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia. It has been published since 1855, making it one of Australia's oldest newspapers and the second-oldest regional newspaper in New South Wales. It has been published daily since December 1949, and has had no local daily competition since the 1960s. It has strong links to the Illawarra community. Under editor Peter Cullen, the Mercury was jocularly known as The Mockery among Illawarra residents for its poor copy editing, resulting in frequent typographical errors. As a result, it became a running gag on the ABC's Media Watch in the period when Stuart Littlemore hosted the programme. The Mercury is published in the standard Australian tabloid format, with each page having an approximate size of A3. The Mercury has had several Walkley Award winners on staff, most recently journalists Mario Christodoulou, Nicole Hasham and Laurel-Lee Roderick, and photographer Sylvia Liber. The paper has often supported Labor at state and federal elections, but backed the Liberal Party for the 2011 New South Wales state election. It has links to neither party.