3 Metro Vancouver community news outlets to close as parent company cites 'financial challenges'

Glacier Media has announced the upcoming closure of three Metro Vancouver community news websites, and the mayor of one of the cities losing its news source says he's worried about the impact.

A statement posted online says Burnaby Now and the New Westminster Record will close no later than April 21 and Tri-City News will close by May 21.

The statement says Glacier Media "explored all possible options to maintain operations" but the industry's "ongoing financial challenges have made it unsustainable."

It says it has been a privilege and an honour to serve the community for more than 40 years.

The three publications spent decades as print newspapers but in August 2023 transitioned to online-only.

Publisher Lara Graham says in the statement that news of the closures is a very sad day for employees, readers and local journalism.

"We're incredibly proud of the work we've done and we're so grateful to our hardworking staff who have made these publications so special, and to our loyal readers and advertisers who have supported us over the years," she said.

In an interview with CBC News, New Westminster Mayor Patrick Johnstone said he's afraid of what the newspaper closures might mean for his community, and said their service couldn't just be replaced by social media algorithms.

"I don't know what it means when a community can't tell its stories anymore, when there's no record of our day-to-day, never mind the history of our city," he said.

Johnstone said that New Westminster was a fast-growing city that now needs to rethink how it will provide information to its residents.

"I don't know what the solution is here, but we have to rethink what media means to us and what journalism means to us as a country and as a community, because this is not sustainable," he said.

"We have to be able to talk to each other through traditional media, or through every media that works that includes an aspect of journalism to it and separates the truth from what the algorithms do to us, which is push us towards division and push us towards mistruth."