The
Ottawa Citizen is an
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
-language daily newspaper owned by
Postmedia NetworkPostmedia Network Canada Corp. is a Canadian media company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, consisting of the publishing properties of the former Canwest, with primary operations in newspaper publishing, news gathering and Internet operations....
in
OttawaOttawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
,
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. According to the
Canadian Newspaper AssociationThe Canadian Newspaper Association is the national organization of daily newspapers in Canada, founded in 1996. It is a non-profit trade association and lobby organization, which represents more than 100 Canadian English and French newspapers...
, the paper had a 2008 weekly circulation of 900,197.
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. FrielHenry James Friel was mayor of Bytown in 1854 and then of Ottawa in 1863 and 1868-1869.He was born in Montreal of Irish Catholic parents in 1823. His family moved to Bytown, which was later renamed Ottawa, in 1827. In 1846, he purchased the Bytown Packet, a local newspaper, with John George Bell...
. 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 BlackConrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, OC, KCSG, PC is a Canadian-born member of the British House of Lords, and a historian, columnist and publisher, who was for a time the third largest newspaper magnate in the world. Lord Black controlled Hollinger International, Inc...
's
Hollinger Inc.Hollinger Inc. was a Canadian media company based in Toronto. It was created by the Canadian businessman Conrad Black as a holding company for his media interests after he acquired control of The Daily Telegraph in 1986. It was the parent company of Chicago-based Hollinger International, whose...
. 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
reformThe Reform movement, sometimes referred to as the Reform Party, began in the 1830s as the movement in the English speaking parts of British North America . It agitated for responsible government....
, anti-Tory position under Harris and a
conservativeConservatism in Canada is generally considered to be primarily represented by the Conservative Party of Canada at the federal level, and by various right-wing parties at the provincial level...
position under Bell. Under the Southams, it moved to the left, supporting the
LiberalsThe Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
largely in opposition to the
Progressive Conservative PartyThe Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was a Canadian political party with a centre-right stance on economic issues and, after the 1970s, a centrist stance on social issues....
's support of
free tradeUnder a free trade policy, prices emerge from supply and demand, and are the sole determinant of resource allocation. 'Free' trade differs from other forms of trade policy where the allocation of goods and services among trading countries are determined by price strategies that may differ from...
in the late 1980s. Under Black, it moved to the right and became a supporter of the
Reform PartyThe Reform Party of Canada was a Canadian federal political party that existed from 1987 to 2000. It was originally founded as a Western Canada-based protest party, but attempted to expand eastward in the 1990s. It viewed itself as a populist party....
. It endorsed the
Conservative Party of CanadaThe Conservative Party of Canada , is a political party in Canada which was formed by the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. It is positioned on the right of the Canadian political spectrum...
in the
2006 federal electionThe 2006 Canadian federal election was held on January 23, 2006, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 39th Parliament of Canada. The Conservative Party of Canada won the greatest number of seats: 40.3% of seats, or 124 out of 308, up from 99 seats in 2004, and 36.3% of votes:...
.
In 2002, its publisher Russell Mills was dismissed following the publication of a story critical of
Prime MinisterThe Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...
Jean ChrétienJoseph Jacques Jean Chrétien , known commonly as Jean Chrétien is a former Canadian politician who was the 20th Prime Minister of Canada. He served in the position for over ten years, from November 4, 1993 to December 12, 2003....
and an editorial calling for Chrétien's resignation.
In 2004
CBCThe Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
reported that CanWest which owns the Citizen had changed the wording of
Associated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
stories. The words '
insurgentAn insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...
' and '
militantThe word militant, which is both an adjective and a noun, usually is used to mean vigorously active, combative and aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in 'militant reformers'. It comes from the 15th century Latin "militare" meaning "to serve as a soldier"...
' 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-
IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and anti-muslim.
The logo depicts the top of the
Peace TowerThe Peace Tower is a focal bell and clock tower, sitting on the central axis of the Centre Block of the Canadian parliament buildings in Ottawa, Ontario. The present incarnation replaced the Victoria Tower after the latter burned down in 1916, along with most of the Centre Block...
of the
Parliament BuildingsParliament Hill , colloquially known as The Hill, is an area of Crown land on the southern banks of the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, Ontario. Its Gothic revival suite of buildingsthe parliament buildings serves as the home of the Parliament of Canada and contains a number of architectural...
in Ottawa.
External links