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The Valley Echo is revving up its digital presence. Black Press, the company that publishes The Echo, recently removed the paywall from the paper’s website.

Online Valley Echo content is now available to everybody everywhere, allowing residents, visitors and those who haven’t lived here for years but who still like to keep tabs on the community, to keep a finger on the political pulse of the Columbia Valley.

“Black Press is proud to announce that the Valley Echo is no longer behind a paywall and will be available within the ColumbiaValley and beyond to keep readers informed of news and events,” said publisher Dean Midyette.

The paywall began in late spring 2012 and was in place for nearly five years before coming down last week.

The Valley Echo has been published since 1957, and is the Columbia Valley’s heritage paper and go-to source for the latest on the inner workings of municipal and regional governments as well as analysis of how provincial and national trends play out in the valley plus in-depth coverage of the Columbia Valley Rockies Junior B KIJHL hockey team.

Paywalls at several other neighbouring Black Press newspapers in the Kootenay region have also been taken down and online browsers can now freely jump from The Valley Echo to the Golden Star, Cranbrook Townsman, Kimberley Bulletin, CrestonValley Advance and others.