Bracebridge Mayor Rick Maloney called the late Bracebridge Examiner reporter Mary Beth Hartill a “very special person.”
She was honoured Wednesday with a plaque that designates the media table at the council chambers at Bracebridge Municipal Office as the Mary Beth Hartill Memorial Media Table.
Hartill passed away in April 2023 at Andy’s House in Port Carling after a brief battle with cancer. She was 55.
“There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about her and the relationship she had with us as a council and her commitment to the community,” said Maloney. “She was a journalist who, every day, shared stories that informed, advocated, and challenged. She was a reporter of integrity, she was a reporter of professionalism, and she was a reporter of compassion.”
Maloney remembers election night 2022 when Mary Beth interviewed him shortly after he learned he was elected mayor. After asking him the relevant questions about how he plans to handle town business over the next four years for a video she would later post on YouTube, he said she sat down with him. “We both shared a glass of wine and she said, ‘You have a great opportunity ahead you,” he explained. “And I think she was telling me, ‘Don’t screw this up.'”
“She never interviewed,” said Maloney. “She always had a conversation with you.”
Pamela Steel, the former Managing Editor for MuskokaRegion.com, says Hartill was dedicated to the community. “It was impossible to make her take a day off,” she laughed. She told the story of the flooding that happened in Bracebridge in 2019. Not only was Hartill reporting, but she was on the frontlines volunteering, too.
“It says a lot about the ethics of this town that you would celebrate a journalist like this,” said Steel.
Maloney said he hopes the plaque serves as a reminder to future – and current – journalists of the importance of being a journalist in a small town. “She really brought everything that a journalist should bring to community news,” he said.
The plaque, which is affixed on the wall to the right of the media table, features a picture of a camera similar to the one that was always around Hartill’s neck whenever she was covering a story.
“There will be new reporters that show up and they want to know who she is and they’ll ask the question,” said Maloney, adding he will always be happy to share stories about the special relationship he, council, and many community members had with Hartill.
