About Penticton Western News

Penticton Western News

Overview

The Penticton Western News is a free community newspaper serving Penticton and the South Okanagan in British Columbia's southern interior, published by Black Press Media. Long a twice-weekly fixture of the city, it now appears in print once a week, on Wednesdays — a schedule it adopted at the end of January 2026, when an announcement in its own 23 January 2026 edition told readers that the weekly print edition would move from Fridays to Wednesdays, effective the last week of that month. Its digital editions in Black Press's online edition archive, including issues dated 9 and 23 January and 25 March 2026, and its continuing local reporting — quoted in national news aggregation as recently as October 2026 — confirm the paper as a currently publishing title.

Penticton, a city of 36,885 residents at the 2021 census, sits between Okanagan Lake and Skaha Lake in the heart of British Columbia's wine and orchard country. The Western News is the city's free newspaper, delivered across the community, and it competes for readers and advertisers with the paid daily Penticton Herald. In Black Press's South Okanagan operation, the Western News newsroom in Penticton also supplies reporting to the group's smaller valley weeklies, including the Keremeos Review to the south-west.

History

The Standard Periodical Directory's 2013 edition lists the Penticton Western News — under the fuller form "Penticton Western News (Western News Advertiser)" — as a Black Press publication established in 1966, appearing on Wednesdays and Fridays with a circulation of 22,000. The paper's earlier history is bound up with one of British Columbia's best-known community newspaper publishers. In a profile published by the Western News itself on 2 March 2018, former publisher Don Kendall recalled his career with the paper: the Western News, he said, was sold to Black Press in 1989, with Kendall continuing as its publisher through 1997, and the paper was twice a runner-up for the Canadian Community Newspapers Association's best all-around newspaper award during his tenure. Kendall went on to senior roles with Black Press, and in 2018 he received the Eric Dunning Award for dedication and service to the community newspaper industry at the British Columbia and Yukon Community Newspapers Association awards — honours the Western News reported in its own pages, and which are presented here as the paper's own account of that era.

Through the 2000s and 2010s the Western News operated as a free twice-weekly: Black Press's 2014 media kit listed it publishing Wednesdays and Fridays with total market coverage of 23,380, and a British Columbia Utilities Commission proceeding of the period recorded its print circulation at 19,832 and described it as a free local community newspaper. A 2013 directory masthead named Mark Walker as publisher and Dan Ebenal as editor, and a 2018 recruitment posting placed the newsroom at 2250 Camrose Street. The paper subsequently consolidated to a single weekly edition — a notice plan filed in August 2025 already described it as publishing once a week, on Wednesdays, with a circulation of 19,482 — and the January 2026 announcement of the move from Friday to Wednesday delivery completed its transition to its present Wednesday schedule. Its office, per its 25 March 2026 masthead, is now at 205 – 301 Main Street in downtown Penticton.

Programming and Content

The Western News covers the full civic round of a small British Columbia city: Penticton city council and Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen business, RCMP and court news, development and housing debates, and the management of the lakeside parks and beaches that define the city's public life. Its newsroom reports on the surrounding South Okanagan as well — its October 2026 reporting on the election of the inaugural mayor of the newly incorporated Okanagan Falls was quoted by national aggregators — and on the wine, orchard and tourism economy that dominates the valley. Sports coverage centres on the Penticton Vees junior hockey club and local school and amateur sport, and the paper carries entertainment, community events, obituaries, classifieds and the statutory public notices that remain a staple of community newspaper publishing.

A distinguishing feature of the modern Western News is its role as a regional reporting hub. Its journalists write beyond the city limits: Brennan Phillips, identified in the paper's pages as a Black Press journalist based in Penticton, reports for the Keremeos Review on Similkameen Valley affairs, and the Western News masthead of 25 March 2026 lists an editorial team of Phillips and Logan Lockhart under bureau chief and editor Jen Zielinski. The edition itself, in tabloid format, mixes that local reporting with Black Press regional and provincial content, advertising features and flyer distribution.

Audience and Reach

As a free total-market-coverage newspaper, the Western News is delivered to households across Penticton rather than sold copy by copy, and its published circulation figures trace the contraction of print distribution over the past decade: 22,000 in the Standard Periodical Directory's 2013 listing, 23,380 total market coverage in Black Press's 2014 media kit, 19,832 in a utilities commission filing later in the decade, and 19,482 in the August 2025 notice plan that described its once-weekly schedule. All of these figures are dated, publisher- or filing-sourced measures rather than current audited numbers, and are given here to show the paper's scale rather than its present-day distribution.

Readership surveys conducted for the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen offer a second perspective: the share of survey respondents in the district who reported reading the Penticton Western News was recorded at 29 percent in 2010, 26 percent in 2012, 20 percent in 2014 and 16 percent in 2017, consistently ahead of most other print titles in the district though behind its paid daily rival. Its market is the city of Penticton — 36,885 people at the 2021 census — together with the surrounding communities of the South Okanagan valley floor, from Summerland to Okanagan Falls, whose residents shop, work and seek services in Penticton.

Digital Presence

The Western News publishes continuously online at pentictonwesternnews.com, where its local reporting appears between print editions, and its weekly print issues are preserved as page-for-page replicas in Black Press's digital edition archive. Its stories circulate beyond its own site: national aggregation services carried its October 2026 South Okanagan reporting, and its coverage is regularly credited by other outlets reporting on the valley. The digital operation is the daily face of the same newsroom whose print edition now appears each Wednesday, and the site carries the paper's current masthead, with its Main Street office address and its news tips and circulation email contacts.

Ownership and Organisation

The Penticton Western News is owned by Black Press Media, the community newspaper company founded in 1975 by David H. Black. Black Press filed for protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act on 15 January 2024, and its sale to Canso Investment Counsel, Deans Knight Capital Management and Carpenter Media Group was completed on 25 March 2024, the company emerging from creditor protection Canadian-controlled under chief executive officer Glenn Rogers. By the Western News's own account, Black Press has owned the paper since 1989.

The paper's current organisation, set out in its 25 March 2026 masthead, reflects Black Press's regional structure: Karen Hill is group publisher, Richard Sadick is publisher, Tessa Ringness is creative production manager, Tom Heathfield handles circulation, and the editorial side is led by bureau chief and editor Jen Zielinski, with Brennan Phillips and Logan Lockhart listed in editorial roles. The masthead records membership in Black Press Media and in the National NewsMedia Council, the industry's press-council body. The office is at 205 – 301 Main Street, Penticton, BC V2A 5B7.

Contact and Availability

The Penticton Western News is published weekly, in print on Wednesdays, in Penticton, British Columbia, and is available in print across the city and online at pentictonwesternnews.com, with digital editions in the Black Press edition archive. Its office is at 205 – 301 Main Street, Penticton, BC V2A 5B7, telephone (250) 492-3636, fax (250) 492-9843. Its March 2026 masthead lists newstips@pentictonwesternnews.com for editorial tips and circulation@pentictonwesternnews.com for delivery matters. Readers should confirm current details on the paper's website, as Black Press adjusts the schedules and staffing of its community titles over time.