This week the Citizen talked in the middle of the newsroom for the first time.
The computerized words, an embedded feature in the new digital edition that's streamed across the Internet, sounded a little odd coming from a phone's tiny speaker - it talked so prowed, so pozitive. But it handled the high lyricism that is sportuguese - "that moment, the flame shooting high and bright, triumphantly piercing the darkness" - with a haunting lilt.
It wasn't quite on par with the Olympic Torch Relay coming through town - or Coun. Dave Wilbur's obviously intimate moment feeling podium wood (by the way, nice Biden quote councillor.) But in the small-town world of this newspaper, it was big enough.
So what's the big deal about a talking newspaper?
In Prince George - as in most places - local is the new global. It will take a talking newspaper to speak about this community to as many corners of the earth as will listen.
Practically it means, to compete with all the news sources vying for your attention, the Citizen needed to deliver a digital experience that is elegant and approachable on most coventional platforms anywhere at every hour of the day. The latest fruits of that ongoing process are at www.pgcitizen.ca.
Ceteris paribus, the digital Citizen is a reflection of what this newspaper does in the actual world. For those the Citizen is proud to call subscribers, you get the best of both - a digital copy and an actual copy delivered to your door by our army of carriers.
And the quality of the journalism and photography will be the same whether you're turning the page or scrolling through it. It also means for, say, the players involved in the ongoing saga of the Metis Housing Society, a new brand of public test where accountability can be brought to bear on multiple levels.
It has been a difficult couple of years for the Prince George Citizen; there are names - Neil Godbout, Dave Paulson, Randall Heidt, Scott Stanfield and Paul Strickland - that don't appear on these pages anymore.
Some would say it's a bad time for newspapers.
Other would argue that it's the perfect time to pick one up.
For the complete "smart-version" of the Prince George Citizen visit our Digital Edition
