Citizen at 40:  Shareholders keep unique ownership structure alive

BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN

As The Citizen marks the 40th anniversary of its first issue, it’s worth noting the unique ownership and oversight structure in place for a newspaper that’s truly owned by the community and by the people it serves.

 

The story goes that Sheila Richards - an elite fundraiser and community champion from Brussels who was an early board member at the Blyth Festival - approached a local Blyth man with a journalism background - Keith Roulston - about starting a newspaper in the wake of the closures of both The Blyth Standard and The Brussels Post. After legal consultations on a new ownership structure that would see community members buy shares in the company, leading to the creation of The Citizen, away Richards and others went, selling shares to enthusiastic community members who were eager to have their villages’ voices return to the printed pages of a newspaper.

 

A story on this then-unique approach to creating a newspaper was written locally and then shared internationally, which caught the attention of many and, for reasons that we won’t get into here, some shares had to be returned because enthusiasm for The Citizen was through the roof.

 

Because of the democratized approach to ownership for the newspaper - rather than one media mogul pocketing all the profits - shareholders all had a say in the direction of the newspaper. They were invested in its service and its success and a board of directors and an executive were formed to ensure that those running the newspaper - Keith and Jill Roulston at the time - were doing right by not only the shareholders, but the community.

 

While at the time the structure was unique and interesting, as we moved from the 1980s into the modern day, it became essential as larger corporations gobbled up smaller publications, management moved further and further from the communities those newspapers were serving and political agendas began to creep into news coverage with right- or left-leaning organizations publishing news that fit their particular political interests.

 

Meanwhile, with The Citizen, it was a case of “same as it ever was” as local people managed the newspaper that was serving them. 

 

Over the years, the board executive has seen many faces, but, one thing remained consistent: the people working to ensure the success of The Citizen were always more interested in serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels (and beyond, increasingly, as time has gone on) to a much higher degree than they were in receiving big, fat dividend cheques at the end of each fiscal year. As a result, decisions have been made to ensure the sustained quality of the newspaper, rather than its ability to make tons of money.

 

Clinton’s Marian Doucette has been a shareholder since the beginning, buying shares from her friend and fellow Blyth Festival board of directors member Sheila Richards. Furthermore, growing up in Clinton, she knew Keith Roulston from his days as the editor of the Clinton News Record when she was a high school student. 

 

Doucette says Roulston had such stature in the community and, to this day, she has such a tremendous level of respect for him. As a high school student, Doucette was an active debater, but she remembers freezing up when Roulston was there to cover a debate; now, all these years later, she is one of his biggest supporters.

 

At that time, Doucette was the editor of the local high school’s newspaper and, because the school couldn’t afford to print its own newspaper, they turned to the Clinton News Record, where they were afforded a page every week. It was then that Doucette came to know Roulston and Jim Fitzgerald, but also developed a deep appreciation for the work of a community newspaper and all it means to its residents.

 

During her time reporting from her school, Doucette received plenty of feedback on editorials she was writing about the Clinton Public Hospital at the time (the provincial government was working to close it) and she realized how well-read the local newspaper was and the impact it had on its readers and community members.

 

So, when the opportunity to support a grassroots, upstart project like The Citizen, Doucette jumped at the chance, even as a Clinton resident, but one with a strong foothold in the Blyth community for a variety of reasons. 

 

When Richards had to sell some of the shares back, some of Doucette’s friends took the chance to be among those who did, while Doucette held steady, wanting to be involved in the project, knowing its importance.

 

Then, about four years ago, Publisher Deb Sholdice asked Doucette if she would consider being part of the board, thanks to her extensive work in the community, with the county and with online outreach and social media and Doucette was happy to up her level of involvement.

 

“There was no hesitation on my part,” she said, adding that she couldn’t support the newspaper more, knowing its place in the county as the go-to-resource for residents. When she worked at the county, she knew that The Citizen was where employees turned first and that the paper had become, in recent years, the paper of record for the county to a certain extent.

 

In her time on the board, Doucette has been working closely with Sholdice to keep the paper’s hold on the community and extend its reach even further. Most of all, however, their mission is to communicate to community groups, businesses and municipal governments that so rely on the news aspect of the paper that supporting the newspaper through advertising is the only way to ensure that news coverage can continue. She said that North Huron Publishing is so lucky to have the team in place that it does and that is always the board’s priority, to recognize the talent the company is lucky enough to have and to be realistic about its efforts to keep the team intact.

 

She said that, as the paper has continued to evolve and adapt to an ever-changing world, it has done well to retain the original ideals instilled by Keith and Jill Roulston, while changing with the times and bringing something for everyone week after week.
Ralph Watson of Brussels is a bit more of a veteran. He has been a member of the board executive for about 20 years. However, when asked when he bought shares in the newspaper, he chuckles and says that he didn’t.

 

His mother, Alma, purchased the shares in an effort to support the vision of The Citizen and by the time he got around to inquiring about the availability of shares, they were all sold out.

 

But, the time eventually came for Ralph to take them on and he has remained an active shareholder ever since, recently stepping into that executive position. 

 

A past Brussels Village Councillor and Reeve, Watson knows the power the newspaper holds in the community of Brussels and beyond, saying that, when you stop to think about all of the things that make up the community, The Citizen is the glue that holds it all together.

 

His wife and long-time Brussels columnist Betty Graber Watson says she feels the same way. The “gathering place” for a community has evolved over the years - sometimes it has been a church, other times a community centre or a school - but, in today’s world when it’s more fractured than ever, the community newspaper is the one place that everything is able to come together.