Geoff Olson pens last column for The Vancouver Courier

From Scribble and Skvetch.

I’ve been terminated as a columnist to The Vancouver Courier. The May 18 piece, noting the news, was also rejected.

It appears my May 5 article, “Clark Government’s Record Dismal”, didn’t go down well with the owners, Glacier Media. In fact, the article was scrubbed from the Courier’s online edition days before the election. 

The official story communicated to me – which I believe is trivially true – is that the paper is making way for new voices. 

Budgetary considerations were also likely in play. A month earlier, Alan Garr, a longtime contributor to the paper, had his column reduced from weekly to biweekly. 

My column was already running on a biweekly basis (reduced from weekly over a year ago) and I suppose the next print stop after biweekly is never. 

It’s customary for long-time newspaper columnists to offer a farewell column to readers. Not in my case. The column was nixed. 

I will be continuing to contribute editorial cartoons to the paper until such time I’m replaced with Garfield or Nancy.