Sorry to see the Free Press go …. I a little surprised since a few years back the took over the city contract from the Citizen. They’ve done good for the community by employing persons with disabilities.

A sincere thanks to Bill and all the people over the years at PG Free Press for all your hard work and service to Prince George and Northern BC!

And here I thought the Free Press closed down a year ago.. about the time I received my last copy.

Bill is a good reporter. I hope we don’t loose his perspective in the community.

But honestly how could they not see this coming. I wrote about it on the free for all a few months ago concerned about this very outcome for them. Their continuously running ad for an advertising salesman was a huge red flag. I just don’t think the paper was able to adapt, and they spent too much time on fluff and not enough time on the strategic decisions people are faced with.

I still think PG needs a community paper that is non-profit, possibly independently subsidized by the region, and is governed by a community stakeholder committee. Allowing our public perspectives to get further marginalized through media consolidation and monopolization is a threat to our very democratic system.

Will miss the paper and the reporting, the Citizen is all about filler, stories from around the province and world which when it hits the paper its old news. Fine team at the Free Press and most of all professional to the letter.

While it is too bad for the local people who will be unemployed newspapers have been slowly fading to oblivion for many years. Even after the shift to morning publication most of the stories are at least a day old or ancient history in the internet age.

For those who are interested in what is on sale in the stores there are easily available smart phone apps with the latest flyers.

As for the editorial page, rather than reading the same boring perspective from the same tired hack(looking at you Citizen) internet blogs provide an endless variety of opinions on any topic you choose.

The Citizen had it’s chest all puffed out a while ago because they won some award for best looking front page….kinda like best plumage on a passenger pigeon:)

One thing I won’t miss about the free press is picking it up from all around the yard as the kid delivering it couldn’t seem to find the mailbox when the weather turned a little nasty.

This is a sad day. I worked at the Free Press for a number of years, but left soon after Black Press sold it to Aberdeen. It was still a good publication, but not quite the same as it used to be. I wish Bill, Anne (and any others still there) the best of luck in the future.

Thank you Bill for standing up for individuals’ freedom of choice!

You mean I won’t get any more garbage in my mailbox any longer? Yeah, good riddance.

It was nice to have an alternate to the Citizen, now we don’t.

The Citizen only allows you one letter not exceeding 400 words every three weeks. Even that letter is subject to the whim of the Editor.

So what happens is if you write a letter on a subject and a week later a really important subject comes up you cant get your second letter published. You can comment electronically but I really wonder how many people read the Citizen on line.

Our ability to write letters to the Editor’s of local papers to get our views across, have in my opinion been severely restricted.

Hopefully there will be a huge uptick in the number of people reading and commenting on opinion 250.

So the Free Press closes, the Blood Donor Clinic closes, whats next.??

Is Prince George going to hell in a hand basket. We certainly are not growing the population, and if you look around at the various stores and shopping centres, you can see that numbers are down. I suspect that even the gambling in this town is taking a hit.

A large portion of the revenue spent in this City comes from people on Welfare, Canada Pension, Old Age Pension, and Company Pensions.

These people have been driven to the wall with increases in food, rent, house insurance, car insurance, taxes, and utilities, hydro, etc;

These increases over the years have left them with a lot less money to spend in the community and its starting to show.

The decrease in the price of gasoline certainly helped the situation,. and of course we get a big influx of shoppers from the West, North, and East every week end which certainly helps, however seems like we are getting closer to the point where more business’s will start to close because of insufficient revenue.

The Provincial Government is part of the problem by increasing all sorts of fee’s etc;

‘The Provincial Government is part of the problem by increasing all sorts of fee’s etc;’ – blaming the failures of years of city mismanagement on the BC government… priceless. The laughs never stop around here….

Loved reading the home stories wrote in it. Pictures of local events. Then it made good free fire starter for the wiener roast ,, pretty goofy 101 strikes again. I don’t understand why some people would take the time to post sheet like that ,,don’t get it do you Verbal?

Balanced budget.
If you have 12 eggs to cook, and you cook all 12 eggs. You now have a balanced budget. Now your out of eggs. Its a way to lie to people how good things are going financially. Anyone agree?

Won’t miss it at all. Delivery was hit and miss, and when it did get delivered I would have multiple copies stuffed into the mailbox. Good riddance.

Very sorry to see this local and valuable paper go. Its been a very good one. The other rag, I don’t even bother with. It does make good fire starter though. Can’t say that for the flyers.

A year or two ago the Free Press requested the opinon of the public on changes that could be made to keep their paper relevant. My suggestion was that they begin by acknowledging the fact that the stories they are reporting on have already been covered by several other sources by the time their paper arrives at our door. To coompensate for this they would need to provide a new spin on the story, cover an angle the others did not. It seems clear that for every story there is at least one other side not to mention the limitless side stories surrounding… Not once did I see this in the Free Press. Instead, I saw repeated reporting of news we already knew. No new spin, no fresh angle. Because of this, in recent years the Free Press served two purposes (1) a weekly recap for those with limited time or (2) something for to stare at while eating your bowl of cereal on Sunday

I have helped to support a person with a disability to deliver this paper on a weekly basis and I am saddened to know that he is now out of a job on an abrupt basis. Some people were strongly tied to their jobs and to have them evaporate without a significant heads up will have a big impact on them.

Anyone who believes the demise of the Free Press was due to its editorial coverage is uninformed. The only thing that really keeps a newspaper alive, other than its readers, are the advertisers. Advertising dollars have been shrinking in this area for at least a decade, with consolidations, closures, and other economic downturns. Fewer advertising dollars split among two newspapers, plus radio and TV, it was bound to happen. We are all about to be a little less informed on what is happening in our community, with the loss of the FP.

All I can say is good riddance!
The carrier that delivered this to me is a complete moron and retard!
I watched him throw the paper into a puddle, he was 4 feet away from a completely empty mailbox…
Stuffed in the fence in the pouring rain RIGHT NEXT TO AN EMPTY MAILBOX! Every time it was raining or rain forecasted it was never in the mailbox, yet when it was sunny and no chance of rain, it would be in the mailbox….
I talked to him about it several times, he never cared, gave stupid answers like “I was bored”, so I called in on multiple occasions and guess what they said….. “NOT OUR PROBLEM”

Like I said, good riddance to the useless piece of garbage newspaper, that we could rarely read because it was alway wet… Actually I won’t say useless…it did have one good use…when you run out of toilet paper or for an animal cage.

sum42guy2k wrote: “The carrier that delivered this to me is a complete moron and retard! ”

Something I’m quite sure you said to their face, correct? But don’t hold back, please share how your really feel.

It is interesting that the Free Press shut down in PG, but in Kamloops, the Daily News did the same. The same company owned that owner the Daily News also owns the Citizen. I hope the Citizen sticks around.

As for businesses shutting down and all the doom and gloom, I agree that some mall spots are empty, and haven’t been filled for a while, but look around in other places.

Downtown, for example. 2 Buildings expanding due to demand. 3 new Restaurants opening/opened. Not too mention an Engineering form bought Pizza Rico’s and will be renovating it into a show piece that will also serve as an office.

Looks like the Govt gave up on their plans for Tony Roma’s so that is back for lease. It is an exciting time to be downtown.

Also how could I forget! the New Barber shop in the Left side of the London hotel, and the rest of the building becoming a historic hotel! What a cool idea. Will certainly make that place look a lot better

Yes Pg 101 , you about said it all. Sherri Green did more damage to PG than one can believe , however Chrispie Clark , has raised the medical service plan , will cutting home care and all sorts of other things , she has raised ICBC preniums , Ferrie rates , Hydro, camping fees . BC champagne (BEER) not to mention she just sold 150 hectares of prime public land to a private developer for $43 milllion below value. And then tried to keep it a secret . And now she is out to screw the education system . Unfortunately the seniors will no longer have a paper to read once a week . Prince George is a very sad place and I see a very grave outlook for the future .

stopped the citizen over 15 years ago. haven’t received a Free Press in at least 10 years. I get most of my news needs right off of the ABC communication log in page.

The world has changed. There was a time, if it was in the paper it had to be true. Now we read the news off the internet, and make our own analysis to determine what is true.

Unfortunately, the world has changed and is changing faster than we all would want it too change. There was a time, a decade ago, a 62 year old can say, I don’t do computers and can still hang onto his job. Today, you have to do it all, and into our retirement years, we would still need to be up to date with technology, to function in society.