Prince George Citizen owners Cameron Stolz and Terresa Randall-Stolz announced the relaunch of the 108-year-old newspaper on Thursday morning.
As part of the relaunch, the community will see a new visual identity, a ‘locally owned – community focused’ tagline, and an unapologetically pro-Prince George editorial direction.
"It’s been about six weeks since Terresa and I purchased The Prince George Citizen from Glacier Media and one of the first things we wanted to do was to take some time to understand the organization, understand the business and get to know our employees,” Stolz said. “We had the discussion about where they want to take the paper and where we want to take the paper – how we bring the newspaper back to being a relevant part of people’s lives and realizing that it’s a significant part of our community.”
Stolz said they are also looking at the online newspaper and how to make the changes so that it better reflects the City of Prince George.
“What became very clear during those discussions early on was that we have a local owner now and as the local owners Terresa and I want to be focused on our community,” Stolz said. “We think there’s been far too much time and effort spent covering things that are provincial and national and although those are important, I think for Prince George, we really want to hear what’s going on locally and to that end we have a new tagline, that really resonates well with where we’re going and where we want to take the paper and the online newspaper and that is ‘locally owned and community focused’.”
Everything The Prince George Citizen does moving forward is about being a locally owned product, focused on the community, he added.
“We will be unabashedly pro-Prince George in our coverage and how we look at things,” Stolz said.
“We want to be engaging in our own community and also recognizing we have a surrounding community where there is a desert of news media.”
Stolz cited the shortage of news coverage in Mackenzie, Vanderhoof, Valemount, and Fort St. James.
“In purchasing the paper from Glacier Media, we wanted to make sure this institution that has been around since 1916 remains as an integral part of communication in a time when we see social media spreading misinformation so widely and readily,” Stolz said. “I think it’s important that we have a credible and reliable source of information where if people want the facts about what’s happening in our community they can come and find it in the print edition and on our online presentation.”
Investigative journalism will still be part of the newspaper’s mandate moving forward, Stolz said.
“I think part of being pro-Prince George is doing that kind of work,” he added.
Holding the City of Prince George accountable for their overspending on the downtown parkade led to city council and staff changing policy and improving communication moving forward, which is a prime example of a change made because of Citizen investigative reporting, Stolz said.
“Because of that reporting the City is changing how they handle the procurement processes and that is good for the City of Prince George and that is pro-Prince George,” Stolz said.
“It also means that there are likely to be fewer cost overruns on future projects, which is also good for the City of Prince George and for the citizens who live here.”
The purpose of the paper as it continues with its investigative pieces is to acknowledge there is something wrong and hopefully inspire change, Stolz added.
“It’s important to share these issues with the public to make them aware of what’s going on,” Stolz said.
Online page views for The Prince George Citizen website are greater than all other local media outlets combined.
“That is a significant presence in Prince George,” Stolz said.
Another piece to the pro-Prince George mandate is to further support the community by committing $100,000 of dedicated advertising and promotional space for local non-profit organizations during the first year of operation.
In addition, the weekly paper has seen the page count increase from its usual 24 pages to 32 pages – focusing on more substantive local coverage.
Stolz expects to be publishing 40 pages by next month.
He also indicated that further changes to improve the newspaper and the online news site are expected in the near future.
"Today is the start of a new beginning,” Stolz said. “Terresa and I are enthusiastic about The Citizen’s future in Prince George, and there will be more exciting announcements coming soon."
