A new website has crossed the Gazette’s newsdesk. Literally: at least part of its mission is to discredit this newspaper.
It’s called CountyFirst, and was created by the Prince Edward County Residents Association, whose motto is “Working Together for a Thriving Community.”
There’s just one problem. PECRA is completely anonymous.
An anonymous residents’ association is a contradiction in terms. The whole point of such an association is that it consists of people you know. Further, participating in public discourse requires accountability. Not anonymity.
But it gets worse. CountyFirst is staking a claim to federal funding programs for journalism, in part by asserting that it is more reliable and trustworthy than flagrantly biased publications like the Gazette.
The consequences of attacks on the media by fringe groups are unfolding before us in real time as the United States descends into fascism. We need to take these claims, and the evidence used to support them, very seriously.
A report on its website, called “Media Bias in PEC: Canada Media Fund Recipients and Coverage Imbalance,” claims to have performed an “audit” of the County’s newspapers.
It begins with the observation that both the Gazette and the Times receive substantial funding from “the Canada Media Fund (CMF), Canada Periodical Fund (CPF), and Ontario-based grants like the Interactive Digital Media Fund (IDMF).”
The Canada Media Fund supports film and broadcast media production. Newspapers don’t qualify.
As for the Canada Periodical Fund, CountyFirst claims, “both the Gazette and the Times have qualified for annual CPF support for multiple consecutive years.” It says the Gazette receives $50-$100k every year from both the CPF and the CMF, while the Times receives $50-$75k.
These numbers are pure fabrications. Or hallucinations.
The Gazette received $13,000 from Heritage Canada’s Aid to Publishers program in 2024 and again in 2025. We can’t speak for The Times.
Finally, PECRA claims that something called the Interactive Digital Media Fund gave the Gazette a whopping $213,000 in 2024-25.
That is an astonishing sum, especially considering the Gazette is not “interactive digital media.” Some guesswork about where the researchers at PECRA got this figure did lead us back to the Gazette, but not in the way you might think.
In 2018, we reported on somebody else receiving this grant, in a story entitled: “Picton-based digital firm Yugen receives $213,000 for interactive storytelling app.”
This is the kind of hallucination AI is famous for. It “researches” things by finding links between search terms on the internet. That is what the makers of AI call “intelligence.” The mistake, in other words, suggests CountyFirst is using AI to do its homework. And when AI delivers the right nonsense, CountyFirst looks no further.
Moving away for a moment from this fascinating, dreamlike “audit” of the Gazette and the Times, we checked CountyFirst’s “news” tab. There are some real gems here. News you’ve never heard of is news indeed.
New Bike Lanes Coming to Picton’s Main Street
Starting July 1, construction begins on dedicated bike lanes and widened sidewalks along Main Street Picton from John to Queen. Work is expected to continue through August with detours in place for safety.
Reading this, I wondered if perhaps CountyFirst was an anonymous resident’s association in Picton, New Zealand. Picton, Ontario’s Main Street does not intersect with either John or Queen. Nor is it getting bike lanes. Or widened sidewalks.
The Regent Theatre Re-opens Post-Renovation
Following a six-month closure, The Regent Theatre in Picton reopened on July 3 with upgraded seating, digital projection system, and accessible facilities.
This one is closer to reality — it’s just three years out of date. The Gazette reported that the Regent re-opened on July 8, 2022 after a three-week closure to install accessible seating terraces.
And finally, it’s Christmas in July on the CountyFirst website:
Council Approves Free Winter Boot Program
On July 2, Council budgeted $40,000 for a new “Winter Boot Fund,” which will provide free boots to low-income and elderly residents experiencing financial hardship.
Council did meet on July 2, but for a closed session. More importantly, there is no Winter Boot Fund.
Now that we’ve established the quality of the research, let’s get back to that “audit.” CountyFirst claims, “The loudest voice in media coverage consistently aligns with those in power and development.”
The PG — “the loudest voice” — does regularly report on development, including new development applications, the municipality’s planning and approval processes, major projects by Port Picton Homes, Kaitlin Group, Base31, and Picton Terminals, and development-associated infrastructure.
We think that development is of serious community concern. We are not the only ones. We received Local Journalism Initiative funding for a part-time Rural-Urban Development Reporter in 2024-25. The federally funded Initiative agreed, in other words, that such coverage is important community work.
But for CountyFirst, that’s just evidence of bias. “Significant taxpayer investment in the Gazette’s digital journalism appears to support editorial content that is disproportionately positive toward municipal leadership and developers,” it claims. The evidence? PECRA says it read 132 Gazette articles, found 7 of them were about development, and that 6 of those were “positive.” Conversely, it read 97 Times articles, found 2 mentioned development, and both were critical.
Therefore, they conclude, the Times is better. “The Wellington Times, operating on a smaller budget, has demonstrated a stronger commitment to resident accountability, dissent, and investigative reporting.”
PECRA then advances the “Key Implications” of its AI-generated study. Actually a set of very serious accusations.
The Gazette “undermines democratic engagement,” because “one-sided local journalism may limit informed public discourse, reduce scrutiny of policy failures, and minimize resident-led solutions. Readers deserve clarity on how public funding influences news content. Absence of such disclosure erodes trust and accountability.”
Let us state it loud and clear. The public funding we receive does not influence our work beyond the fact that it supports it. We are required to demonstrate our commitment to ethical and responsible journalism. The Gazette publishes its editorial standards on its website. And demonstrates its accountability week in and week out in clear reporting, clearly attributed. We think carefully about what we say and how we say it. We fact check our work. If errors slip through, as they will, we acknowledge and correct them. Finally, we sign our names.
The threat of Artificial Intelligence to principled, well informed, and responsible human communication is real. And on vivid display on the CountyFirst website, an instance of the threats to civil discourse coming for us all from the dark and anonymous corners of the internet.
See it in the newspaper