Interview with
christopher megrath of mercury magazine
editor-in-chief
BY: clifford brooks
What sets Mercury Magazine apart from other hubs of encompassing culture? I would say there’s a genuine grit in our writing that not a lot of others have. There is this idea that everything must be meticulously covered as professionally as possible when, that’s just not what’s most engaging, especially for an entertainment platform. There is also the matter of quality over quantity.
We are by no means churning out nonstop stories everyday but the posts we do make all do incredibly well and that is down to knowing what the audience engages with and how to resonate with them. A lot of platforms dilute their content by posting everything they can and kind of lose sight of the core audience they have. Mercury has been able to maintain and grow its readers because we only publish strong, punchy content that we know readers will resonate with, be it entertainment or conversational topic, alongside finding that angle and sly jab to throw in some spice.
What is your philosophy in the design of your finished product? Something for everyone. We just launched our first physical issue and going into it, we really wanted something for everyone. Mercury Magazine doesn’t focus on a niche or one specific subculture and we haven’t for all the time we’ve been live, so when it came to the magazine, we tried to really focus on what our readers enjoy and include at least something that everyone can appreciate.
What is your responsibility to your readers? Apart from factual accuracy and sensitivity around certain topics, not much.
How did you develop such a gorgeous online presence? What inspires your approach to social media? I come from this new generation that really appreciates visual appeal of social media and know that if it’s not engaging, people won’t bother with it. We don’t necessarily go for something accurately representative for our featured images, but more so what will look good on our feed. There’s a massive between covering the Grammy Awards with a picture of the award compared to Meghan Thee Stallion performing on stage as the featured image.
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