Established as the Bytown Packet in 1845 by William Harris, it was renamed the Citizen in 1851.[6]
The newspaper's original motto, which has recently been returned to the editorial page, was Fair Play and Day-Light.[7]
The paper has been through a number of owners. In 1846, Harris sold the paper to John Gordon Bell and Henry J. Friel.[8]Robert Bell bought the paper in 1849, and sold it to I.B. Taylor in 1861.[9]
In 1877, Charles Herbert Mackintosh became the principal owner, and he later sold it to Robert and Lewis Shannon.[10]
The editorial view of the Citizen has varied with its ownership, taking a reform position under Friel,[8] and a conservative position (supporting John A. Macdonald) under Mackintosh.[10]
When the Liberals defeated the Tory government in 1896, the owners of the Citizen decided to sell to Southam, rather than face an expected cut in government revenue.[11]
In 2002, the Citizen's publisher, Russell Mills, was dismissed following the publication of a story critical of Prime MinisterJean Chrétien and an editorial calling for Chrétien's resignation.[14]
The Citizen published its last Sunday edition on July 15, 2012. This move meant 20 fewer newsroom jobs, and was part of a series of changes made by Postmedia.[15]
The Citizen stopped producing a print edition on Mondays as of 17 October 2022, due to the costs of printing and delivery, but it continued to publish a digital Monday edition.[2]
The pre-2014 logo depicted the top of the Peace Tower of Canada's Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. In 2014, the newspaper adopted a new logo showing the paper's name over an outline of the Peace Tower roof on a green background.
The Ottawa Citizen's circulation in 2009 was 123,856 copies daily.
Its circulation dropped by 26 percent to 91,796 in 2015.[16]
In Spring 2022, the Ottawa Citizen's unduplicated print and digital average weekday audience was 231,000, and its unduplicated average weekly audience was 490,000.[4]