About Terrace Standard

Terrace Standard

Overview

The Terrace Standard is a weekly community newspaper based in Terrace, British Columbia, serving the city and the wider northwest region of the province. Established in 1988 and owned by Black Press, it publishes a print edition every Thursday alongside the continuously updated website terracestandard.com. Terrace is the largest community and the principal retail, service and transportation hub of northwestern British Columbia, and the Standard is its newspaper of record, covering city hall, the courts, regional industry and the neighbouring Nisga'a Nation. The paper remains in active weekly publication: Black Press's own digital edition archive holds complete Thursday editions dated January 29, February 12 and April 2, 2026, carrying current reporting on Terrace municipal affairs, litigation and infrastructure.

History

The Terrace Standard began publishing in 1988 as a Black Press title. Its founding editor was Rod Link, who took on the additional role of publisher in 1991 and led the paper for nearly three decades, retiring in 2017. Link became a prominent figure in Canadian community journalism beyond Terrace, including work with the Canadian Association of Journalists on the ethics of "unpublishing" news stories. Bert Husband, who had joined the Standard in 2002, succeeded Link as publisher in 2017, an appointment announced by Black Press B.C. North president Lorie Williston; Husband also served as the paper's advertising sales manager. In late 2022, Black Press Media reported that Husband had retired as publisher after five years in the role. Sales duties passed to Dan McGuire, while publishing duties were assumed by Mary Kemmis, the company's B.C. North president. The same season brought a significant change to the paper's business model: in November 2022 the Standard introduced a digital subscription program, offering readers exclusive benefits for paid access to its online journalism, as the paper itself reported at the time. The Standard is a member of the British Columbia and Yukon Community Newspaper Association and is listed as part of the Local News Collective.

Programming and Content

The Standard's reporting centres on Terrace's civic life and the economy of the northwest. Municipal coverage is extensive and detailed: a January 2026 edition reported the latest round of the long-running dispute between the City of Terrace and developer Taisheng International over a $6.18 million deposit for the Skeena Industrial Development Park, while February 2026 editions covered the city's evaluation of bids for a major rebuild of Lakelse Avenue and April 2026 editions reported council's adoption of higher water rates and frontage taxes. The paper also covers the Nisga'a Nation and the Nisga'a Lisims Government; in a 2016 interview with The Discourse, founding editor Rod Link discussed frankly the constraints — newsroom size, budget and the travel distances of the northwest — that shaped the paper's ability to cover Nisga'a legislative proceedings regularly. Forestry, mining, liquefied natural gas development and the Port of Prince Rupert supply much of the regional economic agenda the paper follows, alongside education, health care, provincial politics and community sport. As part of Black Press's northwest cluster, the Standard draws on and contributes to reporting shared with sister titles such as the Kitimat Northern Sentinel, the Prince Rupert Northern View and the Smithers Interior News; bylines in its 2026 editions include regional staff reporter Marisca Bakker.

The paper's journalism has been repeatedly recognized in the B.C. and Yukon community newspaper industry's Ma Murray Awards. Documented results include Rod Link's bronze for hard news writing in 2001; Jeff Nagel's silver in environmental writing and gold in business writing in 2002 and a bronze for historical writing in 2005; Quinn Bender's gold spot news photo award in 2018 and first-place sports photo award in 2019; Binny Paul's gold multimedia feature story award in 2022 for "On the Road to Indigenous-led food sovereignty in northwest B.C." and a bronze John Collinson Investigative Journalism Award in 2023; and Michael Bramadat-Wilcock's silver awards for spot news photography and arts and culture writing in 2023. Its commercial work has also been honoured, with Sandra Stefanik winning Canadian Bankers Association advertising design awards in 2003 and 2007 and the paper itself taking a bronze in the Terasen Newspaper Excellence category for its circulation class in 2003. Link's standing in the region extended beyond the newsroom — he is also credited as editor of No Compromise, the memoir of labour leader John Jensen. Industry circulation documents have separately reported the Standard within the BCYCNA "NX" circulation categories with totals of 9,298 in 2020 and 8,759 in both 2021 and 2023.

Audience and Reach

Terrace counted about 12,600 residents in 2021 by BC Statistics estimates published by the city, and its census agglomeration — the city together with surrounding communities such as Thornhill — counted 19,606 people in the 2021 census. The Standard's circulation area reaches beyond the city into the Kitimat-Stikine region. Audience figures published by the publisher come from Black Press Media's media kits and are dated: the April 2023 kit, reporting figures as of October 2022, listed the Terrace Standard with a Thursday print circulation of 7,233, 237,090 monthly page views on terracestandard.com and 11,989 social media followers. Earlier kits in the same series listed print circulation of 8,759 in November 2020 and 7,749 in March 2022, figures the publisher reported for its advertising market.

Digital Presence

The Standard publishes online at terracestandard.com, with a digital subscription program in place since November 2022. Full digital replicas of the Thursday print editions are preserved in Black Press's online pages archive, where editions from January, February and April 2026 can be read — direct evidence of the paper's continuing weekly print publication. Its website carries daily online updates between print editions, and its stories are indexed by media monitoring services and distributed through Black Press's provincial digital network. In common with other Black Press titles in the northwest, the website itself could not be fetched directly by this project's research tools, so the profile's account of its current operation rests on the publisher's own edition archive and on the documented record of its staff and awards.

Ownership and Organisation

The Terrace Standard is owned by Black Press, the community newspaper group founded in 1975 by David H. Black with the purchase of the Williams Lake Tribune; the Standard was launched under Black Press ownership in 1988. Black Press filed for creditor protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act on January 15, 2024, and its sale to Canso Investment Counsel, Deans Knight Capital Management and Carpenter Media Group was completed on March 25, 2024. The company emerged from the restructuring Canadian-controlled, headquartered in Surrey, British Columbia, with Glenn Rogers as chief executive officer. Within the company, the Standard belongs to the northern British Columbia division whose president, Mary Kemmis, assumed the paper's publishing duties in late 2022 following Bert Husband's retirement, with Dan McGuire taking responsibility for sales. Day-to-day newsroom work is carried out by a small Terrace-based staff supplemented by regional reporters shared across the northwest cluster.

Contact and Availability

The Terrace Standard is published in Terrace every Thursday in print and continuously online at terracestandard.com, where subscriptions to both the print edition and the digital subscription program are offered. Business directories list the paper's Terrace office at 4546 Park Avenue, Suite 302, with the telephone number 250-638-7283; readers can also reach the newsroom through the contact options on its website. Editions of the paper are held in digital archive collections, including the Black Press pages archive and British Columbia newspaper archive services, for readers researching the northwest's recent history.