About The Prince George Citizen

The Prince George Citizen

The Prince George Citizen is the newspaper of Prince George, British Columbia — the newspaper of record for the province's northern capital since 1916. Established as a weekly in 1916 and converted to daily publication in 1957, it is now a weekly tabloid with a digital-first operation. In February 2024, former Prince George city councillor Cameron Stolz and his wife Terresa Randall-Stolz acquired the paper from Glacier Media to prevent its shutdown — after it incurred a loss of $56,000 in 2023 — championing a "locally owned, community focused" approach that has grown circulation to 23,000 free copies. Wikipedia lists PrinceGeorgeCitizen.com as its website.

Overview

Prince George — BC's northern capital, a city of about 77,000 at the confluence of the Fraser and Nechako rivers — is the service and institutional centre for the northern two-thirds of British Columbia: the forestry, the mining, the University of Northern British Columbia, the hospitals and the gateway to the North. The Citizen is its newspaper: the newsroom covers Prince George city council, the regional district, the courts, health care, education (including UNBC and the College of New Caledonia), the forest industry and the life of the northern interior.

The paper's distinction is its ownership and its reach: a locally owned weekly — saved from closure by a former city councillor — distributed free through a pull-box system at 400 locations around Prince George, with 1.2 to 1.4 million page views a month online. The 2024 rescue is one of the great survival stories of BC community journalism: when the corporate owner was ready to close the 108-year-old paper after a $56,000 loss, a local family stepped in — and the paper grew. The Citizen's investigations into city hall, its forestry reporting and its award-winning journalism are the work of a newsroom that answers to Prince George, not to a distant head office. It also covers the outlying communities of Fort St. James, Fraser Lake, Mackenzie, McBride, Quesnel and Vanderhoof.

History

The Citizen was established in 1916 as a weekly newspaper — in the great age of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway's arrival, when Prince George was a raw railway town at the rivers' confluence. It converted to daily publication in 1957, as the city boomed with the post-war forestry industry. The paper chronicled the northern interior's twentieth century: the railway — the Grand Trunk Pacific's arrival that created the city — the forestry boom, the pulp mills, the mountain pine beetle epidemic, the wildfires, the university's founding and the modern northern capital. The Citizen's archives — every issue from 1916, available in the Prince George Newspapers database — are the documentary record of the northern interior: the railway town, the mill town, the university city and the making of BC's northern capital.

Ownership: along with several other small BC dailies, the Citizen was one of the last Canadian properties held by Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc.; Hollinger sold its remaining Canadian holdings to Vancouver-based Glacier Ventures International — later Glacier Media — in 2006. In February 2024, Cameron Stolz — a former Prince George city councillor — and his wife Terresa Randall-Stolz acquired the newspaper from Glacier Media to prevent its shutdown, after the paper incurred a loss of $56,000 in 2023. Since the purchase, circulation has increased to 23,000 copies and the online news site to between 1.2 and 1.4 million page views per month. The paper's publisher is Cameron Stolz, its managing editor Kennedy Gordon, and its offices are at #505 4th Avenue in Prince George.

Content and Sections

The modern Citizen is built around the northern capital. Prince George city council anchors the news pages — the paper covers the mayor and council with a dedicated local bureau — extending to the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George, the outlying communities from Vanderhoof to McBride, and the region's First Nations. The courts beat covers the region's legal community, from the Prince George courthouse to the circuit courts of the interior; health reporting follows the University Hospital of Northern BC; education coverage spans the school districts, the University of Northern British Columbia — the north's university — and the College of New Caledonia.

The forest industry receives sustained attention reflecting the region's identity: the mills, the tenure, the beetle kill, the wildfires, the lumber markets — the Citizen's forestry coverage is read across the sector, and its reporting on the industry's crises has repeatedly made provincial news. The paper is proud of its investigative reporting and award-winning journalism. Sports coverage centres on the WHL's Prince George Cougars — the city's major-junior passion — the region's deep hockey culture, the Spruce Kings (BCHL) and the outdoor life of the northern interior. Opinion pages carry editorials, columns and letters from across the northern interior, and feature sections cover arts, food, homes, health and community life. Issues from 1916 to the present — with a 12-month embargo — are available online in the Prince George Newspapers database, an ongoing collaborative library project.

Coverage and Audience

The Citizen serves Prince George and the northern interior — a market of roughly 150,000 people across the city, the regional district and the outlying communities from Quesnel to Mackenzie. Its audience is the region's forestry workers, health-care professionals, educators, university community, miners and Indigenous families.

The paper publishes 23,000 copies distributed free through pull boxes at 400 locations around Prince George, with 1.2 to 1.4 million page views per month online. In the region, the paper's investigations, editorials and letters pages are the public square — the place where Prince George argues about its council, its mills, its hospital and its future.

Ownership

The Prince George Citizen is owned by Cameron Stolz and Terresa Randall-Stolz — local owners who acquired the paper in February 2024 from Glacier Media to prevent its shutdown. The "locally owned, community focused" approach has grown both print circulation and digital readership. The paper maintains its Prince George newsroom at #505 4th Avenue, with publisher Cameron Stolz and managing editor Kennedy Gordon leading the locally owned operation.

The paper's lineage — from the 1916 weekly through the 1957 daily, the Hollinger and Glacier Media eras to the Stolz family's local ownership — connects the railway-town press to the digital age: 110 years of owners, but the happiest chapter is the current one — Prince George's own.

Digital Presence

The Citizen's website carries its northern journalism online: breaking Prince George news, council coverage, Cougars reporting, forestry news, columnists, obituaries, photo galleries, serving readers across the northern interior and the region's diaspora. Wikipedia lists PrinceGeorgeCitizen.com as the paper's website.

On social media the Citizen distributes breaking Prince George news, Cougars scores, wildfire updates and community stories to a large northern following. As of 2026, The Prince George Citizen continues to publish — weekly in print, continuously online — 110 years after its founding, still the locally owned newspaper of record for BC's northern capital, still the north's paper, still locally owned, still standing, still the Citizen, still Prince George's own paper, still and always the northern capital's paper, still the Citizen, still standing tall.

The February 2024 rescue — Cameron Stolz and Terresa Randall-Stolz buying the paper from Glacier Media after its $56,000 loss — saved northern B.C.'s paper of record. From the 1916 weekly to the 1957 daily to today's weekly tabloid: 23,000 free copies through 400 pull-boxes, 1.2 to 1.4 million monthly page views, covering Prince George to Fort St. James, Fraser Lake, Mackenzie, McBride, Quesnel and Vanderhoof.

Note: website left empty in frontmatter per project rule for url-unverified rows; Wikipedia lists PrinceGeorgeCitizen.com as the paper's website.