About Thorold Today

Thorold Today

Overview

Thorold Today is the online news outlet Village Media operates for Thorold, Ontario, a Niagara Region city of 23,816 people at the 2021 census whose population jumped 26.7 percent in five years, among the fastest growth rates in Niagara. Publishing at thoroldtoday.com, the site provides staff-reported coverage of Thorold city council, Welland Canal and downtown heritage issues, housing and development, Brock University and Niagara College life spilling over from neighbouring cities, sports and community events, together with obituaries, a community events calendar and the provincial and national material carried across the Village Media network. It is one of three Village Media sites in Niagara Region, alongside Niagara-on-the-Lake Local and Pelham Today, and it is Thorold's dedicated digital-first local newsroom.

History

Thorold's own community newspaper for generations was the Thorold Niagara News, part of the Metroland Media chain. That paper's run ended abruptly in the newspaper transaction between Postmedia and Torstar announced on 27 November 2017: Metroland, which had just acquired the title from Postmedia, ceased publication of the Thorold Niagara News along with seven other community newspapers, effective immediately. The closure left a canal city undergoing rapid subdivision growth without a newsroom of its own, reliant on regional coverage from St. Catharines and Niagara Falls.

Village Media's move into Niagara came several years later. The company has published no formal launch announcement for ThoroldToday in the sources available for this profile, and no exact launch date is stated here; the site was, however, publishing staff-reported Thorold news by 2022, when its stories were being cited as the local source on subjects from city hall to junior hockey. By January 2023, when Village Media launched PelhamToday as its 20th owned-and-operated local news website in Ontario, it described ThoroldToday as one of its two existing Niagara sites, alongside Niagara-on-the-Lake Local — making Thorold the anchor of a three-site regional cluster that the company has operated since. Reporter Bernard Lansbergen, whose council reporting anchored the site's early coverage, was promoted to editor of ThoroldToday in April 2023. By March 2026 the company's bulletin listed Kris Dube as editor of ThoroldToday and PelhamToday, part of a shared-leadership pattern across the Niagara cluster.

Content and Coverage

ThoroldToday's reporting is centred on the municipal government of a small city managing big-city pressures. Its council coverage has followed the long-running controversy over the Canada Games Park deal — including a 2024 push for an investigation into the facility built for the 2022 Canada Summer Games — debate over affordable housing projects for seniors, and the June 2024 council vote, carried 7–1 after public delegations and a review, to withdraw Thorold from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' Partners for Climate Protection program. The site remained on the story into the 2026 municipal election season, reporting in September 2026 on questionnaires that two Niagara environmental groups, 50by30 Niagara and the Biodiversity and Climate Action Collective Niagara, sent to candidates, and publishing Councillor Jim Handley's letter of 5 October 2026 explaining his refusal to take part. Development and downtown identity are recurring themes: the site's 2023 reporting on a proposed downtown McDonald's at Pine Street South and Sullivan Avenue, and the heritage advisory committee's objections, was picked up across Niagara, as was its coverage of a condominium proposal at 75 Ormond Street South that council pressed the developer to scale back. Its reporters have also covered workaday infrastructure politics at close range — the site was already reporting in 2022 on the long closure of the Keefer Road bridge, one of the local crossings whose reopening residents waited on for years — and on the friction that growth brings, from a rowdy Juneberry Drive party weekend that drew police and bylaw calls in 2024 to a man charged after allegedly pelting a neighbour's home with eggs. Early bylines besides Lansbergen included reporters Megan Camlasaran, who wrote the site's July 2022 look at why people were flocking to Thorold, and Ludvig Drevfjall, reflecting a small newsroom whose output leaned heavily on a handful of staff. Alongside staff reporting, the site carries Community Leaders Program partnership features such as a volunteer Community Crew that feeds students in Thorold schools, a substantial obituaries section, an events calendar running from library storytimes to trivia nights, and Village Report provincial and national stories.

Audience and Reach

Thorold's audience is a growth story. The city counted 18,801 residents in 2016 and 23,816 in 2021, a rise of 26.7 percent driven by new subdivisions on its edges and by its position inside the St. Catharines–Niagara metropolitan area, minutes from Brock University in St. Catharines and the Welland Canal locks that give the city its identity and its tourism trade. The city's workforce profile is a mix of manufacturing, logistics along the canal and Highway 406 corridor, health care and commuters to St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Hamilton, and the site also draws readers from adjoining rural communities such as Allanburg and Port Robinson that lie within the city limits. Village Media publishes no independently verified audience figure for the Thorold site itself. The company's network-level claims — more than five million monthly readers, more than 450,000 daily newsletter subscribers and 33 publications in its own 2026 industry profile — describe Village Media as a whole and are the company's own figures, not a measured ThoroldToday readership.

Digital Presence

ThoroldToday is an online-only publication built on Village Media's Villager platform, the Sault Ste. Marie-developed publishing system that the company says runs on 80 sites. Readers reach it through a free daily email newsletter — archived editions show the standard Village package of local headlines, obituaries, events, Community Leaders Program stories and Village Report wire items — through the network's mobile apps, its social media channels, and Spaces, Village Media's localized social networking platform rolled out from 2024. The site takes part in network programming including the Inside the Village podcast and cross-network features, and its stories are syndicated through news aggregators, extending Thorold coverage to readers well beyond the city.

Ownership and Organisation

ThoroldToday is owned by Village Media Inc., headquartered at 298 Queen Street East in Sault Ste. Marie. The company's roots are in SooToday, which Dick Peplow started in 2000 as a local shopping directory before it developed into a hyperlocal news site; Jeff Elgie, initially a minority investor, became chief executive after Peplow's death in 2007 and took majority ownership in 2012, and Village Media was established under that name in 2013. Its expansion strategy — planting digital newsrooms in Ontario communities, frequently after a legacy newspaper's closure — has produced more than 30 publications, and ThoroldToday forms the centre of its Niagara cluster with PelhamToday and Niagara-on-the-Lake Local. Editorially, Bernard Lansbergen was promoted from reporter to editor in April 2023, and Kris Dube was listed as editor of ThoroldToday and PelhamToday in March 2026; because staff arrangements change, those credits are presented with their dates. The site is free to readers and supported by advertising, Community Leaders Program partnerships and community sponsorships, which in February 2026 included the Thorold Community Activities Group, and in 2023 a joint Niagara-site sponsorship of the Canadian Mental Health Association's Niagara branch.

Contact and Availability

Thorold Today can be read free of charge at any hour at thoroldtoday.com, with new stories published daily, a free email newsletter, and access through the Village Media app, the site's social accounts and its Spaces community. News tips and community submissions can be sent through the website's contact channels, and advertising inquiries are handled through the site or through Village Media's head office at 298 Queen Street East, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.