The paper's final owner was Black Press, which also publishes the Alberni Valley Times and the Ladysmith-Chemainus Chronicle, and several other weekly newspapers on the island.
[4] In 2011, Postmedia sold its Vancouver Island properties and Lower Mainland weeklies to Glacier Media for $86.5 million.
Later that year they published another letter critical of First Nations, and once again refused to apologize, as they considered it the role of a newspaper to protect and promote freedom of speech.
Local literary lore posits that the early editors of the newspapers presumed that "Nanaimoans" was too difficult for a predominantly blue-collar readership to pronounce.
[citation needed] In 2018, the Library of Vancouver Island University (VIU) undertook a project to digitize and provide an Open Access digital archive of early issues of the Nanaimo Free Press to ensure preservation of content of regional significance, as well as to provide access for citizens and scholars.