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Friday, October 9, 2015
» Alberni Valley Times
Final edition published today After telling the community’s stories for 48 years, a daily tradition ends with the newspaper’s closure ERIC PLUMMER ALBERNI VALLEY TIMES
Today the Alberni Valley Times publishes its last edition, ending a 48-year tradition with ties that date to before the Second World War. The decision to close the newspaper was made last week by the Times’ parent company, Black Press, citing declining circulation and advertising revenue in recent years. Over its last weeks of publication the Times has printed 2,500 to almost 3,000 copies each day, with a circulation of over 8,400 for the free Thursday paper. The Alberni Valley Times was launched in 1967 through the amalgamation of the West Coast Advocate and the Twin Cities Times, two papers that date back to 1931 and 1948 respectively. The Times began publishing shortly before the merging of the cities of Alberni and Port Alberni, and an early edition reported this historic event with a headline reading, “NEW CITY CREATED,” with a photograph of former mayor Fred Bishop cutting a ceremonial ribbon. In its earliest days the Times ran twice a week in a tabloid format, but that all changed on Sept. 28, 1970 when the newspaper began publishing a massive 32-by-23-inch broadsheet edition five days a week. The circulation on that day was 8,118 copies. At the time former MLA Dr. Howard Diarmid called the venture a risky move on the part of owner and publisher Fred Duncan. “I think the decision to go daily in Port Alberni is a very bold gamble,” said Diarmid in a front page story from the first daily edition. “With the population that we have in the Valley it certainly isn’t a sure-fire thing that we can support a daily newspaper.” Over the following decades Duncan’s gamble proved to be successful. By the 1980s the AV Times was also printing a dozen other newspapers on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland by running a daytime and evening shift in the pressroom. Former head pressman Denis Houle recalls the operation’s busiest shift one night in the 1990s when the press ran through 20 newsprint rolls, each printing approximately 23,000 copies of the various publications. “This paper was making nothing but money,” said Houle. “When we were running the Richmond Review we had five pressman on night shift and three pressman on day shift.” Pam Craig worked at the Times for 25 years, co-ordinating the advertising department. When she started in 1988
Pressmen Kevin Atterbury (left), Mike Lyle and Denis Houle stand next to the Alberni Valley Times’ machine in this 1990s. Photo. During the newspaper’s heyday the press ran two shifts a day to print more than a dozen publications. [SUBMITTED]
Woodwards was often buying four full-page ads in the 24-page Thursday and Friday editions. Woodwards later closed its location at Third Avenue and Mar Street, to be replaced by Zellers, which shut down in 2013. “When I started Woodwards was still here, so there were major contributors and advertisers in the paper,” said Craig. Although Port Alberni’s economy was hit long before then by the decline of the forestry industry, Craig saw businesses continue to advertise due to the Times’ reputation. “It’s been really challenging for businesses since the early ’80s,” she said. “What we had here in this community was a
loyalty to the community by original business people. They were second-generation people in business locally and they were committed to this community, and that’s really what sustained us through the ’80s and the ’90s.” The Times’ was last printed in Port Alberni on Sept. 10, 2001, before the press moved to Nanaimo. But even after this transition former ad representative Deborah Kruks recalls a staff at the newspaper of as much as two dozen. She finished her 21-year term at the Times in 2012. “The community did take ownership of the newspaper. As much as sometimes people
would complain about it, there was a lot of pride,” said Kruks. “If we had to make a change, whether it had to do with the time of day that the paper was distributed or if we were going to make a change, all of a sudden everybody was up in arms saying you can’t do that to our paper.” Craig recalls the talent that has been behind the Times over the years, including Rob Diotte, who served as editor from 1980 to 1999. “He was a real newspaper man,” Craig said. “He’d go after the jugular in order to get a story, and that’s exciting to be around.”
With a newsroom of four to six reporters behind him, Diotte wrote an editorial every day. His main concern was to keep people reading rather than pleasing everyone. “They were all local topics,” said Diotte of his editorials. “I tried to keep them controversial, but I really wasn’t worried if people were upset. They’d keep coming back.” The Times’ closure joins a list of newspaper shutdowns in communities across B.C.’s west coast this year, including Vancouver Island publications in Duncan, Campbell River, Parksville and Nanaimo. The number of people employed at newspapers has dramatically fallen with the decline of the industry. The Times’ current six full-time staff are a fraction of the 36 listed on Page 2 of the newspaper’s first daily edition in 1970. Craig fears the effect this trend will have on the community. “If we don’t have strong, correct reporting — or investigative journalism — that doesn’t leave our children with an understanding of what it is to be a critical thinker,” she said, adding that locally produced content is vital to a town’s heritage. “The stories about those people that make up the fabric of this community, they’re lost, or they’re created by someone externally that doesn’t understand the history or the background.” Those behind the production of the Alberni Valley Times would like to thank its readers and advertisers over the years for supporting the publication, allowing the newspaper to write the first draft of Port Alberni’s history since 1967. Eric.Plummer@avtimes.net
October 9, 2015 IMPORTANT NOTICE
To: Subscribers of the Alberni Valley Times Please be advised that Black Press Group Ltd. has given notice that it is our intent to close the Alberni Valley Times. We will not be processing anymore subscription renewals and any prepaid subscription monies past the last publication date (October 9, 2015) will be refunded to you. Your support of the Alberni Valley Times has been very much appreciated by Black Press and the employees of Alberni Valley Times.
Randy Blair The Times’ last full-time employees are, from the left, Eric Plummer, Kris Patterson, Elaine Berringer, Patricia Hall, Kristi Dobson and Martin Wissmath.
President, Lower Mainland & Island Divisions Black Press Group Ltd.
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