About Sooke News Mirror

Sooke News Mirror

Overview

The Sooke News Mirror is the long-established community newspaper of Sooke, British Columbia, a fast-growing district municipality on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island, about 40 minutes west of Victoria. Published by Black Press Ltd., it appears in print once a week — on Wednesdays for many years, with the publisher's page archive showing Thursday editions through the first months of 2026 — and publishes daily online at sookenewsmirror.com. The paper covers the District of Sooke and the neighbouring communities of the Juan de Fuca area, reporting on district council, the Sooke RCMP detachment, schools, development and the harbour-and-forest character of a community that has changed from a logging and fishing town into one of the Capital Region's growth frontiers. It is produced from a local office on Sooke Road, and it is verifiably current: Black Press's page archive holds print editions dated January 15 and 29, February 12 and 19, and April 30, 2026, and new stories were appearing on its website as recently as October 2026.

History

The Standard Periodical Directory's 2013 edition records the Sooke News Mirror — also listed under its shorter name, the Sooke Mirror — as established in 1965, a dating that makes it a fixture of the community for six decades. The Sooke Mirror was already being quoted in debates in the British Columbia legislature in the 1970s, a sign of the paper's place in the region's public life. By the 1990s the paper was part of the Island Publishers group of Vancouver Island community newspapers: publisher Reg Cowie's career record lists him as publisher of the Sooke Mirror in 1996. The 2013 directory listing shows the paper published by Black Press Ltd., with Rod Sluggett as publisher and Pirjo Raits as editor, describing its beat as news for six communities in the southwest corner of Vancouver Island, delivered every Wednesday morning, at a cover price of 25 cents a copy with a circulation of 5,000. Mastheads in 2018 and 2021 still name Rod Sluggett as publisher, with Kevin Laird as editor; Laird, who had previously edited the Victoria News, wrote on taking the job that the Sooke paper's publisher had recruited him from the downtown Victoria newsroom, and he was still filing stories for the paper in April 2026. The paper's parent company changed hands in this period — Black Press entered creditor protection in January 2024 and was sold that March to Canso Investment Counsel, Deans Knight Capital Management and Carpenter Media Group — but the News Mirror's weekly rhythm in Sooke carried on through the transition.

Programming and Content

Municipal affairs lead the Sooke News Mirror's news report. In January 2026 it covered Sooke council's support for adding RCMP officers in the 2026 budget, after the detachment's commander warned that call volumes, population growth and investigative demands were stretching the detachment beyond capacity — a story that captured the pressures of a rapidly growing town. Weeks later it reported the district's clean audit for its 2025 financial statements, explaining an accumulated surplus of $163 million tied largely to infrastructure and other long-term assets. The paper reports development and infrastructure closely, including the completion of the Little River Crossing pedestrian connection between the Sunriver neighbourhood and the town core in January 2026, and it follows community economic initiatives, such as the January 2026 meeting at which local business owners backed the creation of an economic development corporation for Sooke. Its pages also carry the record of community life: letters to the editor, school news, sports, and a standing local history feature drawing on the Sooke Region Museum — historian Elida Peers' columns have explored everything from the Muir family's nineteenth-century steam sawmill to the Goodridge Peninsula — alongside practical fixtures such as tide tables that matter in a harbour community. Regional and provincial stories from Black Press's wider network fill out each edition alongside the local report.

Audience and Reach

The Sooke News Mirror serves the District of Sooke and the string of communities along the southwest corner of Vancouver Island — the area the Standard Periodical Directory described as the six communities covered by the paper every week. Sooke is one of the fastest-growing municipalities in the Capital Region, and the paper's own 2026 reporting documents what that growth means in practice: council debating police staffing for a bigger population, budgets strained by development, and new infrastructure connecting new neighbourhoods. The directory's 2013 listing put the paper's circulation at 5,000 copies when it sold for 25 cents a copy; it has since been part of Black Press's free-delivered Greater Victoria community newspaper group, whose titles include the Victoria News, Saanich News, Oak Bay News, Goldstream News Gazette and Peninsula News Review. Within Sooke, the paper functions as the community's shared record — its classified pages, obituaries and notices are the ones local organisations point residents to, and its reporting is the account of district affairs that other media and community groups cite.

Digital Presence

The paper's website, sookenewsmirror.com, publishes throughout the week, and stories from the site continue to appear in October 2026, showing an active digital newsroom alongside the weekly print edition. The 2021 print masthead directed readers to the paper's Twitter account, @SookeNews, and the site carries the paper's news, letters, classifieds and community notices in digital form. Complete print editions are preserved in Black Press's online page archive, where the Thursday editions of January, February and April 2026 can be read as published. As part of Black Press, the site sits within the group's wider digital operation: in April 2023 Black Press partnered with Village Media to license its Villager content management system for the group's websites, with migration scheduled for completion in 2024. For a community whose population increasingly commutes to Victoria, the website and social channels make the News Mirror a daily source even though its print edition remains weekly.

Ownership and Organisation

The Sooke News Mirror is published by Black Press Ltd., from a local office at 4-6631 Sooke Road in Sooke. Black Press — also known as Black Press Media — was founded in 1975 by David H. Black with the purchase of the Williams Lake Tribune, and grew into one of Canada's largest community newspaper companies; News Media Canada reported 106 Black Press editions across Canada in 2022, 70 of them in British Columbia, including 23 news platforms on Vancouver Island. Torstar held a 19.35 per cent stake in the company from 2002 until the 2024 restructuring. On January 15, 2024, Black Press filed for creditor protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act and announced a sale to an ownership group of Canso Investment Counsel, Deans Knight Capital Management and Carpenter Media Group; the sale was completed in March 2024, the company emerged from CCAA protection, and it remains Canadian-controlled. Founder David Black retired as the restructuring was announced. Carpenter Media Group, which operates community newspapers in the southern United States, brought operating experience to the new ownership group. At the paper itself, mastheads published in 2018 and 2021 named Rod Sluggett as publisher and Kevin Laird as editor, working from the Sooke Road office as part of Black Press's Greater Victoria publishing group.

Contact and Availability

The Sooke News Mirror is published by Black Press Ltd. at 4-6631 Sooke Road, Sooke, BC V9Z 0A3, and the newsroom can be reached by phone at 250-642-5752. The editor's published email address is editor@sookenewsmirror.com, and editor Kevin Laird has also published his direct contact — klaird@blackpress.ca and the newsroom phone number — in his columns inviting readers to share news tips and opinions: "This is your paper and we want to hear from you." The paper appears in print once a week — Wednesday editions for many years, with the publisher's archive recording Thursday editions in 2026 — and its website at sookenewsmirror.com is updated daily, with recent print editions also available in replica form in Black Press's online page archive.