The new local owners of The Prince George Citizen shared some news Thursday morning about the progress the newspaper has made in the last few months since the they bought it from Glacier Media in February.
Cameron Stolz and Terresa Randall-Stolz welcomed media and guests to The Citizen's 4th Avenue offices for the press conference.
It included the announcement of Kennedy Gordon as the new managing editor of The Citizen. He brings more than 30 years of experience at daily newspapers and news websites in Ontario.
“Kennedy, who has been here for six weeks to help us chart a new path forward for The Citizen, shares our vision for what a local news organization should look like,” Stolz said.
Another positive comes as Stolz was happy to announce that for the first time since 2012, the newspaper has reached a new collective agreement with its unionized staff who are members of Unifor Local 2000.
This was one of the top priorities identified when they bought the paper almost six months ago, Stolz added.
“It was a unique position to be in,” Stolz said. “Terresa and I were the ones that negotiated on behalf of the Prince George Citizen. We sat across from the Unifor Local 2000 executive as we did the contract negotiations. It’s important to recognize that it was a long process that I wasn’t familiar with at all and I appreciated the patience and understanding shown throughout that process as we came to a respectful and mutually appreciative agreement.”
The four-year contract recognizes the news industry has changed from where it was in its glory days in the early 2000s, Stolz added.
“We’re in a slightly different environment now as we look at what the future of news media looks like,” he said. “From that perspective there were concessions made on both sides and I am proud to say that as of Sunday, July 21 we have a ratified collective bargaining agreement.”
Other good news focused on The Prince George Citizen newspaper doubling in size, growing from 24 pages to a robust 48 pages, all of it local content. Because of that change, there has been a rise in demand for the hard copy of the newspaper within the community, leading to a circulation increase from 17,500 papers a week to 22,000.
Bringing the paper up to a minimum of 48 pages a week was a priority, new Citizen managing editor Kennedy Gordon said.
"I'm happy we have been able to make that happen," Gordon added.
"That's 48 pages of local content, much of which is not available anywhere else. Every community needs a newspaper, but sadly, many no longer have one. That's not going to be the case for Prince George. The Citizen is here to stay."
The Citizen is hiring staff and is actively recruiting people for the advertising and editorial departments, Stolz added.
“The changes aren’t done," he said. "Although the print edition of the paper has reached the goal Terresa and I had for it when we bought the business, the next step is to review and revamp its digital presence to make sure the website becomes a bigger part of the next phase of The Citizen’s growth.”
