what I saw in that article was petty name-calling, desperately trying to create an issue and raise credibility issues that would take the sting out of Ben's critiques of the Citizen and the DBIA... imho. Self-serving, as far as I'm concerned. Keep up the good work Ben!

Ben
The DBIA and especially Nicholson is threatened by you and any good journalism that may uncover his/their agenda.
Keep up the great work. We all appreciate the many years of selfless service to our area you have given us.
By Nicholson and his attack dog writing this little "expose" he has removed all doubt about what kind of "journalist" he really is.
It has become evident through his various actions where he is coming from.

Ben. I agree that it was a poorly written article. However, has every piece of journalism you produced in your career and that has appeared on this website been perfect? There is not a lot of news in the summer and they have to find something to put on the front page. Give the guy a break.

The Citizen is a garbage rag. Im quite surpirsed that they are still in business.There must be an angel investor in there somewhere that is pumping its money into this rottign caracass of a publication.

I lost faith in them once i really started getting into business and making money as a stock investor. One thing i notice with their "reporting"-- if you can call it that.. Is that its more the opinion of person doing the report instead of cold hard facts. Opinions dont make me money.. Facts do..$$

As far as opinion250 is concerned they are pretty good at reporting what is actually going on.. And its free and un bias..

I chuckle at the "outrage" over the Citizen doing something 250 and Meisner has been doing since day one...... that being selectively ignoring facts and sensationalizing others to try and make a story.

Meisner and good journalism are two things that should never be said in the same sentence.

Unbiased, now that's a joke!!

well said realitycheck. I view the news here because it, and the comments, are funny; not because the reports are accurate or unbiased. This website is Prince George's equivalent to Fox News in the US.

realitycheck, maybe you could point me to some of these stories you are talking about. I highly doubt opinion 250 has done what the Citizen just did. News should be reported not made up.

Ruez. How about the judgement Ramsey got against Meisner. A BC Supreme Court judge said Meisener made stuff up. And isn't he 100 or something so that was pretty far into his career. He can't blame it on being inexperienced.

I actually think this site does a pretty good job of reporting local news. Provincial matters, not so much.

Congratulations on your appointment Ben!

Congrats Ben ...you have been a Staple around here for as long as I can remember, I had the pleasure of meeting you personally when I was a kid.

As for the citizen vs. O250 goes: Seriously?????? ... I find it hard to believe that people expect a totally unbiased news source from a web site called "OPINION 250" ... evidently people that do dont know the english language all that well.

In my expiriance every news source and media outlet is biased in one way or another ... but the best I have found so far is the BBC

I find it humorous that the so-called newspaper, the PG Citizen,doesn't run an locally written editorial until they see a chance to make a rival look bad. Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that most editorials are reprints from other newspapers and the news is usually 2 days old? Keep up the good work Ben.

While we're on the topic of lawsuits:
I recently learned that Citizen publisher Nicholson was sued by his former editor-in-chief and news editor, and they haven't been replaced. And it shows.
Surely Ben would have had all his ducks in a row with the law society before his appointment, and the law society would have conducted its due diligence.
This witch hunt carries a whiff of defamation of character.

There isn't a journalist alive that doesn't have some type of bias in their writing. It's up to the reader to recognize it and then use their own brain to figure out how that bias impacts what's being reported. That's why most people will tend to read a few different accounts of the same story before they form a serious opinion on what's being reported.

As for the PG Citizen, you mean people still buy newspapers? LOL.

Well said NMG. Good points on the diversity of material.

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As for me, I think that the PG Citizen is just sour that they are becoming less and less relevant every day. They don't like it when they are exposed as a gatekeeper of information and a tool for their corporate shareholders. Soon they will be completely irrelevant.

I would like to see the city buy the PG Citizen and run it as a co-op of journalism with a board of directors that are voted on by a wide variety of stakeholders in the community. The city would simply financially back the operation, and investigative journalist could write for prize money with every eligible registered citizen of PG given one credit each month (maybe a dollar or two in value) to allocate to their favorite journalist as per that journalists contribution to the well being of the city.

This city wastes millions on wasteful projects with no real utility to the city as a whole... we subsidize the CN Center and the UNBC Sports Center for over a million there alone. Surely a successful publicly owned newspaper (that shares its content openly with private enterprise) wouldn't ever lose a half of that in a bad year... the greater the utility of the paper as a local source I have no doubt the greater the revenue would be as well... and who knows maybe it would enrich local journalism giving PG the PG advantage over other multinational media centers. I don't think that advantage can be underestimated....

The Citizen is a good paper that is, right now, being run by a bad man and a bad corporation. It has been going downhill ever since being taken over by Glacier from Hollinger and took an even worse turn when Mr. Nicholson took over the reins from the late Del Laverdure. However, it is "our" paper and as a reader for 50+ years I will continue to support it in hopes that this man will move along and become some other towns problem. I would hate to see the Citizen suffer the same fate as the paper in Prince Rupert. We are lucky to have so many sources of information that allow a venue for debates such as this. The more of this we have the better. While it is clear that Mr. Nicholson uses his Editorial staff to further his own agenda, the Citizen does publish many letters with opposing views. And as long as these media sources continue to hold eachother accountable, such as in this case, a little controversy is a good thing. I think even Ben would agree with that.