The Citizen lives to see another day
And milk-jug curling is cancelled
The rumours were true: businessman and former city councillor Cameron Stolz is the new owner of the Prince George Citizen. That paper published three stories about it yesterday: One, the basic announcement, two, a longer article based on his comments at the press conference and three, a column by Stolz himself outlining his reasoning and goals for the purchase. There’s also coverage in My Prince George Now, CKPG and CBC. I recommend reading them if you’re interested in this — I’m not going to cover everything here - but there are a few basic themes:
The first is that Stolz says he did this because he values having a local paper and, having seen previous owner, Vancouver-based Glacier Media, shut down basically every other paper outside of the Lower Mainland over the past year, decided to take action to prevent that fate from befalling the Citizen. Glacier’s publisher also provided comment to those who asked, saying they are more than happy to see the Citizen move into local hands.
Second, he doesn’t seem to particularly think he’s going to make money on this (the paper apparently lost $56,000 last year). That’s probably the right attitude to have. I’m not sure if you’ve been following along, but media organizations whose model is based on providing a high return on investment for distant ownership groups are rapidly dying out, or being squeezed into corpses putting out a bare-bones product in order to get every last dying cent. With the exception of a basically just the New York Times, the only other models that seem to be working are those that are more interested in eking out a break-even existence than turning a profit.
The real question, I think, is probably how much is he willing to lose? A few years ago, all the talk was whether papers like the Washington Post and the L.A. Times could turn around after being saved by billionaires who, like Stolz, had good thingss to say about the importance of civic journalism. Now, their future seems increasingly uncertain. So we’ll see.
And third there’s the editorial bent. Stolz has said he plans to let all current staff stay on, should they choose (I’m not sure if any are still unionized, if they are I would be curious how that plays out). He also says he wants the paper to continue to hold power to account, with perhaps even more of a focus on investigation — something he himself has been subject to, after the Citizen published a report in 2013 revealing he hadn’t paid his property taxes in three years, leading to his resignation as chair of the city’s finance committee and likely playing a role in his failure to get re-elected to council three times in a row. But he also said he plans to have a more “pro-Prince George” and “solutions-based” tone, a statement that looks pretty different depending on which way you squint at it.
There have been some comments about what it will mean for the Citizen to have someone who is so politically engaged in the owner’s chair, and those are fair questions to have, but the reality is if Stolz simply wanted to rid himself of a pesky group of reporters, he probably could have just sat back and let nature take its course, and if he wanted a soapbox, he already seemed to be free to have column space in the Citizen’s pages whenever he wanted. Newspapers largely started as a way for a few businessmen or politically-minded individuals to try and persuade others to their point of view, the concepts of thinngs like objectivity and holding power to account evolved later and often at the same time the owners tried to turn a profit. Now that papers aren’t profitable anymore (and have an ever-reduced reach) it seems those keeping them alive are those who actually do think there is some value to having a shared community space for news — otherwise you can just start a Facebook page or, ahem, a newsletter.
Again, it’s worth asking questions and keeping an eye on how things go but the reality is the alternative to this was most likely the Citizen shutting down altogether. And as diminished as it is from 50 or even 10 years ago as fewer and fewer staff have been tasked with keeping its torch alive under increasingly challenging circumstances, it remains the most important source of news in the communinty — the one guaranteed to cover council or school board, and the one most likely to break a story from city hall. I’ve said many a time, as much as you may enjoy this newsletter, the only reason it is able to exist as it does is because there are other reporters in the city who are writing about the basic facts of what is happening, allowing me to throw together links and riffs — heck, even this entire body of text you’re reading now is possible because other reporters went to Stolz’s news conference and I was able to read up on it. If they get to keep doing what they’ve been doing, that’s good news in my books.
Quick news:
Special Weather Statement issued for Pine Pass as temperatures expected to drop.
The Prince George Community Arts Council (Studio 2880) seems to be taking over operations of the Prince George Playhouse, with an eye to reopening in April. I thought I had missed news of this transition, but it actually just happened.
Prince George City Council left a good chunk of the Council Contingency Fund unspent last year.
Indigenous graduation rates 25% lower than non-Indigenous in SD57.
CNC launches two new programs to support regional job market.
There is talk about having a satellite branch of the public library in College Heights.
Coldsnap starts tonight. Here’s one of the artists playing, who I discovered through their Spotify playlist:
And a note: You may have noticed I didn’t put out a newsletter this past Monday. It’s possible I’ll be switching to a four-day a week schedule in order to make the most of having an actual weekend. Just so you’re forewarned!
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Hello I’m an interested follower of media goings on all around BC, I live in Vancouver. Just curious how you would describe his political leanings?