About NanaimoNewsNOW

NanaimoNewsNOW

Overview

NanaimoNewsNOW is the online news portal of Pattison Media's operation in Nanaimo, British Columbia, published at nanaimonewsnow.com. Launched on 28 July 2016, it is the digital arm of the same local newsroom that supplies Pattison's two Nanaimo radio stations, 102.3 The Wave and 106.9 The Wolf, and it carries local and provincial news, sports, community coverage, weather and election information for Nanaimo and the surrounding mid-Vancouver Island communities, including the Oceanside area of Parksville and Qualicum Beach.

The portal was created to fill a local news gap. In 2016 Pattison Media — then operating as the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group — identified Nanaimo as an underserved news market, and NanaimoNewsNOW published its first story six months after the Nanaimo Daily News shut down, ending more than 140 years of daily newspaper publication in the city. A decade on, the portal remains a full-time local news service: in the autumn of 2026 it was publishing daily stories, running a multi-week series profiling mayoral candidates across the mid-Island, and operating an interactive "Know Your Vote" tool for the October 2026 municipal election, alongside coverage of the provincial election held the same month.

The service is currently operating. Its stories dated October 2026 include the launch of the Know Your Vote tool (1 October 2026), analysis pieces on the Nanaimo election campaign (6 and 12 October 2026), and reporting that Nanaimo had recorded 19 deaths from toxic drugs in July and August (15 October 2026), with its coverage cited the same month by other outlets following British Columbia affairs.

History

NanaimoNewsNOW published its first story on 28 July 2016. In an editorial marking the portal's fifth anniversary in July 2021, the outlet recalled that in 2016 Pattison Media "identified Nanaimo as an underserved news market with a growing community and several pressing issues requiring more attention," and tasked a small team of reporters with launching "a new, online news portal with up-to-the-minute coverage of the mid-Island, to complement existing radio news coverage on 106.9 The Wolf and 102.3 The Wave." The launch came at a difficult moment for local journalism: the Nanaimo Daily News had abruptly closed the previous January, and the number of journalists producing local news in the city was shrinking even as its population grew.

The young portal made its name on civic coverage. The anniversary editorial points to its reporting on a toxic climate at the previous city council, its fact-checking of the failed referendum on building a multiplex, and its close following of the Nanaimo sawmill murder trial. Reporters trained in radio had to adapt to a new craft: "In the early days, our staff spent hours combing through style guides and transitioning our writing from time-condensed radio scripts to full-length feature writing," the editorial says, describing a newsroom policy of taking its own photographs wherever possible and writing headlines "without click bait."

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the portal produced daily updates focused specifically on the Nanaimo and Oceanside communities rather than the whole of Vancouver Island. Its corporate parent, meanwhile, reorganised: after more than 20 years as the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group, the company became Pattison Media Ltd. effective 1 May 2021, a change it framed as the move "from a broadcast company into a multi-platform media organization," with news portals among its digital properties. In July 2026 NanaimoNewsNOW passed its tenth anniversary, having covered several municipal, provincial and federal elections in the mid-Island.

Content and Coverage

The portal's coverage is the full-service mix of a small-city newsroom: breaking news and police reporting from Nanaimo RCMP releases, city council and regional district affairs, courts, health, education, community events and sports. Election coverage is a particular strength. For the 2026 municipal election, NanaimoNewsNOW built Know Your Vote, an interactive tool built around a 44-question survey of the candidates for mayor and council — 36 of the 44 candidates responded by the 28 September 2026 deadline — which lets voters rank the candidates against their own answers. A companion series of articles worked through the results issue by issue, from downtown revitalization to the balance between community amenities and core infrastructure, and a multi-week feature profiled mayoral candidates across the mid-Island, including in Parksville. The newsroom also covered the October 2026 provincial election, reporting on candidate forums and campaign developments in the Nanaimo-area ridings.

Regular features include The Water Cooler, the portal's letters-to-the-editor feature, community pet profiles published under the Pattison Media byline, and daily weather and road information for the mid-Island. Because the newsroom is shared with the radio stations, stories move between the website and the newscasts on 102.3 The Wave and 106.9 The Wolf, and NanaimoNewsNOW stories also appear on the websites of Pattison's other mid-Island stations, including 88.5 The Beach and 99.9 The Lounge in Parksville.

Audience and Reach

NanaimoNewsNOW serves the city of Nanaimo and the mid-Vancouver Island region, including the Oceanside communities — the same audience as its sister radio stations, and the readership left behind when the Nanaimo Daily News closed in 2016. No independently audited audience figures for the portal itself are published in the sources consulted, and none are claimed here. The only scale figures available are the parent company's own: at its 2021 rebrand, Pattison Media said its stations and portals across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba served approximately 22 per cent of the Canadian population, a company claim presented here as such. In Nanaimo the portal competes with the Nanaimo News Bulletin newspaper, community outlets and the digital services of provincial and national broadcasters.

Digital Presence

The portal publishes continuously at nanaimonewsnow.com, free to read. Readers can subscribe to its daily news wrap, an email newsletter that delivers the day's top local stories each evening, and follow the outlet on X (as @NanaimoNewsNOW), Facebook and Bluesky, where it maintains an account under the NanaimoNewsNOW name. The 2021 anniversary editorial describes an expanding digital operation that included live-streaming key events in the city and engaging with commenters on social media, and the site carries photo and video content produced by its own reporters — October 2026 election stories, for example, carry photo credits to staff reporter Jordan Davidson. NanaimoNewsNOW content is syndicated across Pattison Media's Vancouver Island station websites, extending its stories to the Parksville and Qualicum Beach audiences of 88.5 The Beach and 99.9 The Lounge.

Ownership and Organisation

NanaimoNewsNOW is owned and operated by Pattison Media Ltd., the broadcasting and digital media division of the Jim Pattison Group, one of Canada's largest privately held companies. The portal is produced by the company's Nanaimo newsroom, whose reporters and editors serve the website and the group's two local radio stations, 102.3 The Wave and 106.9 The Wolf, from the same operation. It is one of the local news portals Pattison runs alongside its radio stations in western Canadian markets — 17 such portals were part of the company when it took the Pattison Media name in 2021. Editorial output appears under individual staff bylines, under the shared Pattison Media byline for syndicated and feature material, and in unsigned editorial content such as the anniversary editorial quoted above.

Contact and Availability

NanaimoNewsNOW is published at nanaimonewsnow.com and can be reached by email at info@nanaimonewsnow.com; the same address appears on the portal's stories carried by its sister stations' websites. The site is free to read without a subscription, and its daily news wrap newsletter is delivered free by email each evening. Readers can submit letters to the editor for The Water Cooler through the website, and follow the outlet on X, Facebook and Bluesky for breaking news and election coverage.