If my New Year's resolution in 2024 had been to find something interesting to do, I would have achieved it in spades. The last 12 months have been interesting, exciting, and so much more.
On Feb. 1, the staff of The Citizen were called in early for a meeting. The mood when Terresa and I arrived was one of despondency as they expected to be told that the paper was being shut down. Their reaction turned to surprise and cautious optimism when we announced that we had purchased the business.
Having never been in the newspaper business, other than as a paperboy as a kid, or the advertising business, I had no basis for what we were jumping into. The plus side is that I also had no idea what wasn’t possible.
Our first priority was achieving a new union agreement. The Citizen staff’s last contract was signed in 2012 and expired almost a decade ago.
Terresa and I met with the union and negotiated the new agreement ourselves – reaching out only for technical support.
A process we hoped would only take a few weeks to work ended up drawing out until the end of June.
The result though, was a new four-year contract.
Next, we went to work on rebuilding the newspaper. The paper has gone from the 24 pages it used to be to 32, 40 and now 48 to 64 pages each week. All because of the feedback from you, our readers. Better yet, these pages are full of local content only.
We’ve also seen our circulation grow for the paper from 17,500 copies to 23,000 now.
It doesn’t stop there.
Our digital news site has also grown in viewership. In January, Google Analytics showed our site had 750,000 views. For the last 30 days, our page views have grown to over 1 million. That’s more page views than the other news sites in Prince George combined.
The learning curve this last year has been incredibly steep, but we are exceptionally pleased with the results.
For the first time in over a decade, The Citizen is adding employees instead of cutting staff.
Our first was a new editor with 35 years of experience in the industry. We then added people who work behind the scenes to help get your paper out, sell advertising, and keep the website running smoothly.
The people I’m most excited about hiring though are the three new reporters that we recently brought on board.
Now we can return to the work I am the most passionate about – investigative journalism.
Our team is currently working on two significant stories and will be launching into more in January.
As the proud owners of our local newspaper of record, Terresa and I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
We can’t wait to see what next year brings.
Cameron Stolz is the owner and publisher of The Citizen. Have your say with a letter to the editor: [email protected].
