About Blyth Brussels Citizen

Blyth Brussels Citizen

Overview

The Blyth Brussels Citizen — known to its readers simply as The Citizen, and styled in some references as the North Huron Citizen — is an independent community weekly newspaper based in Blyth, in Huron County, Ontario. It covers the villages of Blyth and Brussels and the surrounding rural municipalities of North Huron, Huron East, Morris-Turnberry and Central Huron, a farming region in the southwest of the province. The paper is published 51 times a year, according to the masthead reproduced in its January 20, 2023 edition, and it operates alongside two sister publications, the monthly farm magazine The Rural Voice and the Huron County visitors' guide Stops Along the Way. The Citizen is unusual among Canadian community newspapers for its ownership model: it is community-owned, founded after dozens of local residents bought shares to keep a locally controlled newspaper alive in Blyth and Brussels. It is a member publication of the Ontario Community Newspapers Association (OCNA), which currently lists the paper with a circulation of 1,855 and no publishing group — that is, as an independent title. The Ontario Community Newspapers Association describes The Citizen and its sister publications as the only publications owned within Huron County.

History

The Citizen was founded in 1985, at a moment when Blyth and Brussels were losing their historic newspapers. The Brussels Post, which village histories date to 1884, ceased publication in the early 1980s; Huron County's digitized newspaper holdings record runs of the Post from 1885 to 1929 and from 1937 to 1981. The Blyth Standard, whose digitized run spans 1893 to 1982, had also come to an end. Keith Roulston, a Huron County newspaperman who had bought the Blyth Standard in 1971 and sold it in 1977, founded The Citizen in 1985. As the Ontario Community Newspapers Association recounts in a profile of Roulston, dozens of residents bought shares in the new paper, making it the region's only community-owned newspaper. Roulston, a 1969 graduate of Ryerson University's journalism programme who had edited the Clinton News-Record in 1970 and later served as editor and publisher of The Village Squire and The Rural Voice, was also involved in the creation of the Blyth Festival in 1975, and he remains identified on the paper's masthead as its founding publisher; the OCNA profile describes him as the paper's retired publisher. County library and museum digitization records list The Citizen (Blyth/Brussels) from 1985 onward. For a time the paper kept offices in both villages — at 413 Queen Street in Blyth and 541 Turnberry Street in Brussels — but the small Brussels sub-office closed in 2022, leaving Blyth as the paper's single home.

Programming and Content

The Citizen's editorial mix is that of a classic rural community weekly: municipal council coverage for the townships it serves, school and church news, agricultural reporting, sports, obituaries, community events and a clearly voiced editorial page. Editor Shawn Loughlin writes regular editorials on local issues; his commentary is also carried on the website of the sister magazine The Rural Voice, where a recent editorial took North Huron's council to task over its handling of a decision about the Blyth fire hall. The paper takes an active role in community life beyond reporting it: each year it runs Citizen of the Year Awards honouring residents of Brussels, Blyth and Huron County, with nominations invited by email to the editor — the 2023 award winners were featured in the paper in early 2024. The quality of the editorial page has been recognized competitively. In the 2016 Canadian Community Newspaper Awards, The Citizen was selected Best All Around newspaper in the circulation class of 1,250 to 1,999, and its January 20, 2023 editorial page took third place for Best Local Editorial in the 2024 Canadian Community Newspaper Awards. An OCNA-hosted results file for the 2024 Better Newspapers Competition also records a second-place finish for the paper. According to the OCNA's profile of its founding publisher, the paper has won dozens of provincial and national awards over a 35-year period; that characterization is the association's own.

Audience and Reach

The Citizen serves a small, dispersed rural readership across southern Huron County. The OCNA's current member directory lists its circulation as 1,855, a figure consistent with the 1,250-to-1,999 circulation class in which it won its 2016 national award. Subscriptions have been offered across Canada and into the United States for former residents who have moved away: the paper's January 2023 masthead priced a one-year subscription at $50.00 within Canada and $190.00 in the United States, figures stated here as of that date. The sister magazine The Rural Voice extends the publishing company's reach well beyond the newspaper's own circulation — the OCNA describes the monthly farming magazine as going to 13,000 farm homes in southwestern Ontario — while Stops Along the Way addresses visitors to Huron County. The paper's own slogan, printed on its editorial page, is "A community's centre," a fair summary of the role a community-owned weekly plays in villages of this size, where it remains the paper of record for council decisions, school news and local milestones.

Digital Presence

The Citizen's website is huroncitizen.ca, and the paper also maintains a presence through its sister title's site: editorials by Shawn Loughlin appear on ruralvoice.ca, the website of The Rural Voice, which carries the publishing company's Blyth address and contact details. County digitization projects hold scanned runs of The Citizen from 1985 to 2019, preserving its back file alongside those of its predecessors, the Blyth Standard and the Brussels Post. The reference article on the village of Blyth, updated in October 2026, continues to describe Blyth as home to the North Huron Citizen in print and online, and the paper's current listing in the OCNA's member directory confirms its ongoing operation. Because the paper's home domain could not be rendered by automated research tools during the preparation of this profile, a direct visual check of huroncitizen.ca for the newest issue date is recommended at publishing time.

Ownership and Organisation

The Citizen is published in Blyth by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Its ownership is its defining organizational feature: it is a community-owned newspaper, founded on shares bought by dozens of local residents, and it has remained locally owned ever since — the only publications owned within Huron County, in the OCNA's description. The January 20, 2023 masthead names Keith Roulston as founding publisher, Deb Sholdice as publisher and president, and Shawn Loughlin as editor, with Brenda Nyveld handling advertising sales. The same masthead records a Publications Mail Agreement (No. 40050141) and membership in the Canadian Community Newspapers Association and the Ontario Press Council. The publishing company's small portfolio — The Citizen, The Rural Voice and Stops Along the Way — is produced from the Blyth office, an arrangement that lets a very small staff sustain a weekly newspaper, a monthly farm magazine and a tourism guide for the same rural market.

Contact and Availability

The Citizen's office is at 405 Queen Street in Blyth, Ontario, with a mailing address of P.O. Box 429, Blyth, Ontario N0M 1H0. The telephone number on the paper's January 2023 masthead is 519-523-4792, with a fax line of 519-523-9140; the sister magazine's contact block has also shown the number 519-523-4311 for North Huron Publishing at the same Queen Street address, so callers may encounter either number depending on the publication they are dealing with. The general email address published by the company is info@northhuron.on.ca, and nominations for the Citizen of the Year Awards were directed to the editor at editor@northhuron.on.ca. The paper publishes 51 issues a year, with an advertising deadline of Tuesday at 2 p.m. recorded in the 2023 masthead. Readers outside Huron County can follow editorials through ruralvoice.ca, and the newspaper itself is available in print by subscription and in Blyth and Brussels locally. The Brussels office at 541 Turnberry Street, listed in older directories with the number 519-887-9114, closed in 2022 and should no longer be treated as a point of contact.