Ottawa Citizen

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Ottawa Citizen
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File:CAN OC.jpg
The January 29, 2013 front page of the Ottawa Citizen
Type Daily
(Sundays discontinued in mid-2012)
Format Broadsheet
Owner(s) Postmedia Network
Publisher Gerry Nott
Editor Andrew Potter
Founded 1845
Political alignment Centre-right
Language English
Headquarters Ottawa, Canada
Circulation 113,859 weekdays
112,928 Saturdays
103,585 Sundays in 2011[1]
ISSN 0839-3222
Website ottawacitizen.com

The Ottawa Citizen is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Canada. According to the Canadian Newspaper Association, the paper had a 2008 weekly circulation of 900,197.[2]

History

Established as The Bytown Packet in 1845 by William Harris, it was renamed the Citizen in 1851. The newspaper's original motto, which has recently been returned to the editorial page, was Fair play and Day-Light.

The paper has been through a number of owners. In 1846, Harris sold the paper to John Bell and Henry J. Friel. Robert Bell bought the paper in 1849. In 1877, Charles Herbert Mackintosh, the editor under Robert Bell, became publisher. In 1879, it became one of several papers owned by the Southam family. It remained under Southam until Southam itself was purchased by Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc.. In 2000, Black sold most of his Canadian holdings to CanWest Global.

The editorial view of the Citizen has varied with its ownership, taking a reform, anti-Tory position under Harris and a conservative position under Bell. Under the Southams, it moved to the left, supporting the Liberals largely in opposition to the Progressive Conservative Party's support of free trade in the late 1980s. Under Black, it moved to the right and became a supporter of the Reform Party. It endorsed the Conservative Party of Canada in the 2006 federal election.[citation needed]

In 2002, its publisher Russell Mills was dismissed following the publication of a story critical of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and an editorial calling for Chrétien's resignation.[3]

In 2004 CBC reported that CanWest which owns the Citizen had changed the wording of Associated Press stories. The words "insurgent" and "militant" which were originally used in the AP story were swapped for "terrorist". The rest of the story stayed the same. This led to the National Council on Canadian-Arab relations to accuse the Citizen of being pro-Israel and anti-Muslim.[4][5]

In mid-June 2012 the Citizen went from offering free access online of content to requiring a paid subscription.[citation needed]

It published its last Sunday edition on July 15, 2012. The move cut 20 newsroom jobs, and was part of a series of cuts by PostMedia.[6]

The logo used to depict the top of the Peace Tower of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. In 2014 it was rebranded, with a new logo showing the paper's name over an outline of the Peace Tower on a green background.

Sections

Daily

  • News
  • World
  • City
  • Sports
  • Arts
  • Business

Weekly

  • Food
  • Driving
  • Technology

See also

References

  1. Audit Bureau of Circulations e-Circ data for the six months ending September 30, 2011. Retrieved February 16, 2012.
  2. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. "Fired publisher named Nieman Fellow", Harvard University Gazette. 2002.
  4. "[1] Report biased, Arabs argue CanWest inserts word 'terrorist' Groups asking for an inquiry]".
  5. "Reliving the horror".
  6. [2] Archived June 1, 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  • Adam, Mohamed. (January 2, 2005). "When we began 1845: For 160 years, the Citizen has been the 'heartbeat of the community". Ottawa Citizen.
  • Bruce, Charles. News and the Southams. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1968.
  • Kesterton, W. H. A History of Journalism in Canada. Ottawa, Canada: Carleton University Press, 1984. ISBN 978-0-88629-022-1.
  • Rutherford, Paul. A Victorian authority: the daily press in late nineteenth-century Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982. ISBN 978-0-8020-5588-0. DDC 71.1. LCC PN4907.

External links