The Prince George Free Press has announced that Friday, May 1st will be the final edition of the paper.
Free Press editor Bill Phillips made the announcement in an editorial on the Free Press’s website Thursday morning saying it was a simple matter of advertising revenue disappearing.
“Newspaper wars are battles of attrition. It becomes a question of who can hang on the longest.” Phillips said “Here, it was the Prince George Citizen. Just last year the Kamloops Daily News, which was a sister paper to the Citizen, lost the attrition battle to our sister paper Kamloops This Week.”
He also pointed out that newspaper companies such as Black Press and Glacier Media have been staying out of each other’s way intentionally and “carving up the landscape geographically”
It’s a sad day for Prince George as the Free Press has been in business telling stories for over 20 years.
“Two newspapers is good for a community. Having two newspapers provides readers with different perspectives on the same issues, different looks, and different voices.” Phillips said
In an over the phone interview Phillips had this to say:
“In 2008 when the economic crash hit everywhere, I know we got hit with that as well. For us I think that was probably where the signals started to go the wrong way.”
The closure now leaves the Prince George Citizen as PG’s sole newspaper.
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