Prince George Citizen to expand print product

The Prince George Citizen has spent the last six weeks under new ownership since local businessman and former City Councillor Cameron Stolz and his wife Terresa purchased the publication from Glacier Media.

Today (Thursday), Stolz and the Citizen announced some slight changes to the newspaper.

This includes changes to the physical paper itself, which will increase from 24 pages to 32 pages, with the eventual goal of hitting 40 pages.

While numerous other print newspapers have completely shut down around the province in the last decade, Stolz said Glacier “cut their costs by reducing the number of pages they were printing so they could get the paper out with the least amount of effort,” and he still sees value and demand in the print product.

Stolz said he hopes to fill these extra pages with more local content that was not making the cut before, but declined to answer if he plans on hiring more reporters.

Earlier this morning the Citizen announced long-time editor Neil Godbout has left the newspaper and has started work at the Executive Director of the Prince George Chamber of Commerce.

Hannah Petersen, one of their former reporters, also left the paper earlier in the month.

I don’t know how many people are still on #CityofPG twitter but I’ve started a new job with CBC and can now be reached at [email protected] 👋

— Hanna Petersen (@hannaepeter) March 6, 2024

Stolz said the paper lost $56,000 in 2023, which he was aware of when making the purchase, and that Glacier had budgeted for a $110,000 loss in 2024.

“Asked point blank if they were planning on closing the paper, their question back to me was ‘how long do you want to lose money before you make the decision to not lose money anymore,'” Stolz said.

Despite this, a second change announced is the paper will be giving away $100,000 in free advertising to local community organizations, Stolz used the Girl Guides, Air Cadets, and the Prince George Council of Seniors as examples.

They have also changed their tagline to read “locally owned – community focused.”