About Alberni Valley News

Alberni Valley News

Overview

The Alberni Valley News is a weekly newspaper serving Port Alberni and the Alberni Valley on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Published by Black Press Media in broadsheet format, it appears in print on Wednesdays and continuously online at albernivalleynews.com. Since October 2015, when Black Press closed the valley's other newspaper, the Alberni Valley Times, the News has been the only newspaper published in the Alberni Valley. It covers Port Alberni city council, the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District, the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations on whose territories the city sits, the forest industry that built the local economy, fisheries, schools, junior hockey and community life in a port city at the head of the Alberni Inlet. Print editions dated Wednesdays in January, February and March 2026 are preserved in Black Press's digital page archive, and its stories were still being published and syndicated in October 2026.

History

Newspaper publishing in the valley is older than the News itself. The city of Port Alberni was formed in 1967 by the amalgamation of the twin cities of Alberni and Port Alberni, and the Alberni Valley Times was launched that year, when the West Coast Advocate and the Twin City Times merged; its first edition appeared shortly after the amalgamation. The Times passed through a succession of owners — David Radler's Sterling Newspapers in the 1970s, the Southam chain under Hollinger, Canwest in 2000, Postmedia Network in 2010 and Glacier Media in 2011.

The Alberni Valley News began in August 2006, as the paper itself recounted in an August 2024 retrospective: it started in a commercial building at Sixth Avenue and Roger Street, later moved to a building on Margaret Street near Johnston Road, and in September 2020 moved into its third home, on Napier Street. A Black Press title from the start, the News competed as a free paper against the paid Times. The rivalry ended in December 2014, when Black Press and Glacier Media swapped British Columbia community newspapers and Black acquired every Vancouver Island paper it did not already own except the Times Colonist — including the Alberni Valley Times. Black Press closed the Times in October 2015; its final edition was published on October 9, 2015. Black Press president and chief executive Rick O'Connor explained that the Times' paid circulation had dropped so far that its previous owners had resorted to delivering it free twice a week to compete with the News, and that running both papers no longer made sense. The News has been the valley's sole newspaper ever since.

The Napier Street building the News moved into in 2020 was built in 1934 and had housed a city works office, a glassworks, a fireplace shop and printing companies. In August 2024 the paper reported that the building had been listed for sale, and group publisher Teresa Bird told readers the sale would not change its coverage: "Our news team have both our digital presence as well as a printed newspaper," she said, under a headline assuring readers the newspaper was not going anywhere.

Programming and Content

The News covers the civic life of the Alberni Valley in depth. Its February 2026 editions followed Port Alberni city council's five-year financial plan, reporting that residents faced a 6.82 per cent property tax increase for 2026, with policing the city's most expensive service at more than $11 million, and covered council's rejection of a temporary-use permit application by the Coulson Group for its building on Third Avenue. Indigenous affairs are a standing beat: in February 2026 the paper reported the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council's call for a halt to the salmon allocation review, and in October 2026 it covered school board candidates' commitments on relationships with Indigenous rights holders. Forestry, the valley's defining industry, is covered through stories such as the Alberni Valley Community Forest Corporation's 2026 donations to local organizations, including the West Coast General Hospital Foundation's cancer treatment centre campaign. Its January 14, 2026 edition carried a valedictory interview with Port Alberni's outgoing chief administrative officer, Mike Fox, and its October 1, 2025 edition reported a climate-action gathering outside city hall addressed by the Alberni Transition Town Society and a city councillor. The paper's opinion pages carry a letters section, titled Inbox, and its community coverage includes a weekly What's On events listing, coverage of the Alberni Valley Bulldogs junior hockey team, obituaries, and reporting on issues from supportive housing to wildfires in the surrounding Beaufort Range. Staff bylines in 2025 and 2026 include reporter Austin Kelly and longtime editor Susie Quinn, who was still writing for the paper in September 2026.

Audience and Reach

Black Press's 2023 media kit reported the Alberni Valley News's circulation as 9,174, as of October 2022. The paper is distributed across Port Alberni and the surrounding Alberni Valley, a largely rural area of logging communities, lakeside settlements and First Nations whose residents rely on the News as their only locally published newspaper. Its audience includes city and regional district officials, forestry workers and contractors, fishing and tourism businesses, and the members of the fourteen Nuu-chah-nulth nations whose territories surround the inlet. Online, the paper's reach extends across Vancouver Island and beyond, because its stories are shared across Black Press's British Columbia news websites — a September 2026 Alberni Valley News story by Susie Quinn, for example, also appeared in the Victoria News and other Black Press titles — and are carried by national news aggregators and monitoring services.

Digital Presence

The paper publishes daily at albernivalleynews.com, where its local reporting appears alongside material from across the Black Press network. Its printed Wednesday editions are reproduced page by page in Black Press's online page archive, which preserves editions from 2020 through 2026, including those of January 14, February 4, February 11 and February 18, 2026. Alberni Valley News stories are indexed by journalist databases and news monitoring services, which recorded new items from the paper on September 2, September 22 and September 23 and October 13, 2026, confirming that it continues to publish current local journalism in both print and digital form.

Ownership and Organisation

The Alberni Valley News is owned by Black Press, the community newspaper company founded by David H. Black in 1975 with the purchase of the Williams Lake Tribune and headquartered in Surrey, British Columbia. The paper operates within Black Press's Vancouver Island group; in 2024 its group publisher was Teresa Bird. Black Press entered creditor protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act in January 2024 and, on March 25, 2024, completed the sale of the company to Canadian institutional investors Canso Investment Counsel Ltd. and Deans Knight Capital Management Ltd. together with Carpenter Media Group, a United States community newspaper operator. The company said the transaction kept it Canadian-controlled, and that it publishes some 150 daily and weekly newspapers in Canada and the United States with approximately 1,200 employees. The News has continued publishing under the new ownership, as part of one of the largest community newspaper networks in British Columbia.

Contact and Availability

The Alberni Valley News's office is at 4918 Napier Street, Port Alberni, British Columbia, V9Y 3H5. Its opinion page invites readers to share their views at editor@albernivalleynews.com, an address published in the paper's February 18, 2026 edition, and the newsroom can also be reached through albernivalleynews.com. The paper is available in print each Wednesday across the Alberni Valley and online at all times; recent print editions can also be read in Black Press's digital page archive.