kawarthaNOW.com is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2026.
That’s 30 years of locally owned digital media, 30 years of responding to unpredictable obstacles, and 30 years of community events, breaking news, event listings, and reporting across five counties. And, behind it all, 30 years of determination and impact from a woman who went against the grain to become one of the first female digital publishers in Canada.
The story of kawarthaNOW began during the Christmas holidays in 1995, when founder, CEO, and publisher Jeannine Taylor — then a magazine editor for three local print publications — surfed the internet for the very first time.
Peterborough had just gotten connected and, after a few attempts, Jeannine finally got online and spent days on what was then called the “information superhighway” — “I was single at the time,” she jokes.
“I knew this was a new emerging medium that was going to change everything, from how we communicate to how we promote,” she says.
The Peterborough native encouraged her print publisher to get ahead of the times, though he couldn’t see into future like Jeannine could, so she quit her job and just five months later on May 1, 1996, with the help of her former business partner Michael Young, launched Quid Novis, an “e-zine” focused on local community information and events. The following year, she acquired the domain name quidnovis.com for the website.
One of only a handful of local websites at the time, it saw 10,000 visits in its very first week — a very impressive achievement in 1996 when less than 20 per cent of Canadians were online. Jeannine garnered much media attention, and even travelled to Toronto to be featured on CBC Radio.
Despite the website’s popularity, Jeannine says it was a challenge to monetize it, as many businesses were still firmly entrenched in the world of print advertising and saw the internet as a passing fad.
“We were way ahead of our time because there were few websites, so no one understood the need to advertise,” Jeannine says. “It was difficult to make the connection of what a print ad was to its online equivalent. We take it for granted now because we see banner ads everywhere.”
Local businesses and organizations, however, began seeking out Jeannine for her guidance in website development and internet marketing. So she launched Quid Novis Internet Productions, a website development and hosting company, while continuing to maintain quidnovis.com as a free community service.
By this time, the internet had proven to be transformative not just on Jeannine’s professional life, but also in her personal life, as she met her partner Bruce Head on match.com on May 31 the same month Quid Novis launched.
Since then, he has been by her side, both in business and life, and is currently kawarthaNOW’s managing editor.
Perhaps Bruce was one of few people who saw Jeannine’s vision of the internet in those early days. It was not easy to get a bank account or insurance for an internet business, and even more challenging if you were a female entrepreneur attempting to secure financing.
“It was a group of men around the boardroom table who didn’t even want to talk to me about what the business was,” Jeannine says. “One of them asked me where the men were who were involved in the business.”
Fortunately, she had no problem ignoring the men, and continued to build the business on her own.
Over the next 16 years, Quid Novis Internet Productions developed hundreds of websites for small to large companies and organizations as well as different levels of government, winning multiple awards in the process. In 2003, Jeannine earned a Premier’s Award nomination and, two years later, was named Business Woman of the Year by the Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce.
With the rise of social media in the aughts, Jeannine saw the opportunity to revisit the community website she first created in 1996, envisioning it as a digital media company. Quidnovis.com was rebranded as kawarthaNOW.com and launched in 2009 as the online publication you know today, generating revenue through digital advertising and locally focused branded editorial.
“It still holds true today that a subscription model or a paywall model was never a viable option for us,” Jeannine says, noting she has a policy that as long as she owns the company, there will never be a registration requirement or paywall. “I think that information has to be freely available on the internet and monetization needs to be approached strategically and with an entrepreneurship lens.”
It was with that entrepreneurship lens that Jeannine was in the process of developing an innovative “choose local” campaign in early 2020 when the pandemic hit and changed everything.
kawarthaNOW became an in-demand source for community news and updates about the pandemic and website traffic tripled from 25,000 to over 70,000 regular readers (and, better yet, that traffic stuck after the pandemic).
But it wasn’t just important news that kawarthaNOW delivered during the pandemic. In kawarthaNOW’s weekly VIP e-news, Jeannine took it upon herself to offer messages of hope, resilience, and support among all the uncertainty.
Every week for one year, Jeannine began the e-newsletter with a famous quote and a punchy or inspiring message for readers.
Inclusive of her own anecdotes, feelings, and observations, Jeannine’s messages explored everything from the strength of front-line workers to the turmoil of lockdowns, the importance of self-care, the “new normal,” the rise of anti-racist movements in response to U.S. protests, and so much more.
“It really changed depending on what people were feeling that week because we were all on a roller coaster,” Jeannine says. “Every week, I tried to gauge where people were at.”
It’s initiatives like this that make local independent media something that people can count on. Over the years, kawarthaNOW has adopted other traditions that gives it a personal edge over the competition — the annual cheeky April Fool’s Day story crafted by Bruce, for example, or the annual year-end summary of the most impactful stories.
With distrust in mainstream media continuing to rise, Jeannine says, local independent media is needed more than ever. Many readers tell her they only follow specific news sources, and local independent news is often at the top of the list.
“People have select choices, but in every case they do trust local media,” she says. “I think it’s because, whether it’s us or someone else, they know the people in the community. I don’t think the need for local media is going away anytime soon.”
When the federal government passed the Online News Act in June 2023 and Meta blocked access to news for Canadians on its social media sites, kawarthaNOW faced what Jeannine says was a “much bigger pivot than the pandemic.”
Suddenly, more than 50,000 followers could no longer see kawarthaNOW’s posts on Facebook and Instagram.
“It was policy that was developed because print media lobbied heavily for it,” Jeannine says. “Our readers were frustrated and concerned about losing access to local news.”
In response, kawarthaNOW.com launched its daily e-news delivered straight to the inboxes of thousands of readers’ inboxes, which maintains a 70 per cent open rate, and launched the Kawartha Now Community Facebook group, which has now gained over 8,500 members.
Through all the ups and downs over the past 30 years, kawarthaNOW has continued to deliver quality in reporting breaking news, advertising, sharing community stories, and curating upwards of 800 local events at any given time.
Jeannine and Bruce did not even miss a day of publication during lengthy weather-related power outages in recent years, because it was during these times that the community needed local media more than ever.
The publication has always worked to serve the community, as evident when Jeannine developed the “Know Your Locals” branded editorial series as an affordable way for small businesses to advertise. It’s still being offered at the introductory rate two years later.
Additionally, kawarthaNOW donates upwards of $200,000 to the community annually through in-kind donations of time, advertising, and sponsorship of non-profits, focusing on arts and environmental initiatives and advocacy for vital women’s and social programs and organizations.
As a female founder who has shattered glass ceilings, Jeannine aims to inspire and mentor female entrepreneurs — reminding them not to listen to those men in the boardroom.
“I think that being a female publisher means going up against the patriarchy every day,” she says. “I was alone in that boardroom with all those men and I didn’t ever have a female mentor to help. So that’s my soft spot, and I try to connect with women who are in the early stages of their business and need support.”
That generosity is one of the reasons Jeannine has earned numerous awards and accolades over the years.
They include a City of Peterborough Civic Award for chairing the development of Millennium Park, an inaugural Peterborough-Kawartha Women’s Leadership Award organized by Maryam Monsef in 2018, inductions into the Peterborough & District Pathway of Fame in 2023 and the Peterborough Business Hall of Fame in 2024, and the inaugural Legacy award of the Luminary Awards for women in business in 2025.
Despite all the challenges facing the media industry, Jeannine remains committed to kawarthaNOW’s mission of keeping residents informed.
“This is not a high-profit-margin industry, but it’s okay because we’re doing what we want to do,” Jeannine says. “We’re serving the community. We’re keeping people employed and doing what they want to do. Those are all good things.”
Jeannine always says recruitment is her superpower, pointing to Bruce as an exceptional editor who, as someone who also reports on those often painfully long city council meetings, doesn’t sleep any more than Jeannine does.
Long-time writer Paul Rellinger is also a testament to that, given that he has chosen to spend the past 10 years bringing his decades of award-winning journalism experience to kawarthaNOW.
And yet, Jeannine also makes space for writers like me, when I was fresh out of school and just beginning a career in an intimidating industry.
“Our biggest strength is that there’s trust but also the quality is there,” Jeannine says. “I love marketing, and I know that we can help people with marketing. People tell us that works.”
To celebrate its 30th anniversary, kawarthaNOW will be launching a promotion to recognize long-term partners throughout the year.
“We’re marking 30 years this year by putting together a limited set of anniversary features and campaigns that highlight local businesses alongside that milestone,” says Jeannine. “It will be a nice opportunity for our advertisers to tell a bigger story and get some longer-term visibility.”
