Josh Duncan
Josh Duncan covers local business through the lens of what makes the region tick day to day, linking commercial activity to community life, events and consumer choices. His coverage for KelownaNow blends business, hospitality and culture, with a steady focus on how openings, closures, campaigns and attractions affect residents and visitors.
Business of hospitality, dining and local attractions
Duncan frequently reports on restaurants and hospitality businesses, highlighting both rankings and recognition as well as the practical details for customers. In one recent story, he covers how three local patios earned spots on a national list of Canada’s best outdoor dining restaurants, using the ranking as a hook to spotlight specific venues and what they offer diners. He writes about breweries that secure international headliners for annual summer music festivals, connecting the booking of touring acts to the business strategy behind drawing crowds and building a brand around events. His work often treats patios, breweries and other leisure venues as business stories as much as lifestyle pieces, emphasizing their role in the local economy.
Across these pieces, Duncan tends to combine concise newsy leads with accessible descriptions of the experience on offer, giving clear context on why a particular venue or event matters in commercial terms. He treats awards lists, festival announcements and show cancellations as inflection points for the businesses involved, showing how reputation and programming choices translate into foot traffic and revenue.
Events, entertainment and commercial impact
Duncan regularly covers entertainment-related announcements that carry business consequences. He reports on major touring shows, including a piece on a high-profile speaker event that was cancelled due to “unforeseen circumstances,” explaining what ticket holders need to know and how the change affects the local venue and organizers. In his coverage of brewery-led music festivals, he details the lineup of international and niche performers, framing the programming both as an attraction for attendees and a strategic investment for the host business. These stories often sit at the intersection of entertainment and commerce, with Duncan attentive to contracts, scheduling, and the implications of changes for local operators.
His format in these pieces is straightforward news reporting: clear headlines, tight summaries of the key development, and enough operational detail—dates, times, ticket information, and partner organizations—to make the article directly useful to readers and partners. The emphasis is on what is happening, who is involved, and how it reshapes the offerings of local businesses rather than on long-form criticism or review.
Civic institutions, culture and community-facing organizations
Beyond hospitality and entertainment, Duncan covers cultural institutions and community organizations whose work has economic and social dimensions. He has written about museum exhibitions that tell stories behind Japanese Canadian dispossession, describing new displays and how they add to the region’s cultural landscape. In another piece he reports on a museum exhibit that presents early 1900s local life through historical newspapers, blending interest in media history with the role of museums as civic anchors. His coverage of initiatives like the Chabad Living Library focuses on how community programming responds to local needs and builds engagement.
These stories show Duncan extending his beat from pure business into the ecosystem of organizations that shape local identity, tourism and service provision. He situates exhibitions, library programs and similar initiatives in terms of what they offer residents and visitors, and how they fit into broader efforts to preserve history, foster dialogue or provide new experiences. The tone remains factual and measured, with attention to dates, locations and the practicalities of attending or participating.
Leadership role and cross-market perspective
Alongside his reporting, Duncan holds a leadership role within the NowMedia network as a News Director, overseeing coverage across multiple city-focused outlets. That position gives him a broad view of regional stories and likely informs his emphasis on “news that matters” to local audiences, including business developments with immediate impact on daily life. His work appears across categories from business and entertainment to community news, but the through-line is a focus on the commercial and organizational actors that shape the regional experience.
Because he operates within a multi-city network, his reporting often reflects an understanding of how local businesses and institutions compete and collaborate across markets. Whether he is highlighting a brewery’s festival strategy, tracking the fortunes of notable venues, or reporting on cultural programs, Duncan consistently ties the subject back to the organizations making decisions and the people affected by them.
4 more business journalists.
Aarjavee Raaj
Aarjavee Raaj focuses on how corporate decisions, government warnings and economic trends affect everyday Canadians, using clear, data-driven business and related news coverage. She is a CTVNews.ca journalist with experience reporting on arts, culture, business and more, and her name is pronounced Aar-Za-Vee. Her work links institutional and corporate developments to practical consequences for workers, consumers and families, including corporate losses, retail restructuring, tax schemes and compliance warnings. She reports on workplace trends, economic strain, consumer recalls and health impacts, using survey data, charity reports, regulatory notices and clinical stories to show how macroeconomic and policy issues touch daily life. A digital journalist, she keeps to tight headlines, clear summaries of official statements or data, and a steady focus on what developments mean for people who work, shop and rely on public services.
Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams reports human interest stories that follow how sudden conflict, loss and long-running mysteries reshape the lives of ordinary people in everyday settings. She is a writer-reporter on PEOPLE’s Human Interest team, a role she has held since joining the brand in June 2021. Her work centers on routine days that turn into major events, giving equal weight to what happened and the human cost. She covers minor disputes and errands that end in tragedy, sudden accidents, law enforcement and public safety incidents, and missing-person cases with new developments after years of uncertainty. Her reporting is concise, event-led and built around individual lives, often framed with clear emotional cues while staying grounded in verified facts. Business and workplace contexts appear as backdrops, but the person and their circle remain at the heart of the story.
Akshay Kulkarni
Akshay Kulkarni is a data-led reporter who explains how economic, policy and social forces play out in British Columbia through concrete numbers, records and local case histories. He has worked as a journalist at CBC British Columbia since 2021, focusing on business, labour and resource developments, including tariffs, trade rules, corporate strategies and regulatory decisions. His coverage of critical minerals, Amazon’s impact on jobs and wages, and responsible investment links market shifts to the lived experience of workers, consumers and small businesses. He also reports on infrastructure, energy and land use, such as the Site C project and high-value property disputes, and on policy and social systems, including Indigenous deaths in custody, social media use in harm reduction, and mandatory inquests. His stories are built around original interviews and quantitative detail that show how systems affect communities on the ground.
Allison Stephen
Allison Stephen stands out for connecting everyday life with money, work, and the built environment through vivid local examples instead of abstract business coverage. She is a staff writer at Daily Hive, where she covers how jobs, housing, major projects, and consumer experiences shape economic reality on the ground. Housing and real estate are central to her work, including detailed, accessible stories on distinctive homes, high-end rentals, and monthly shifts in home prices and cost of living. She regularly covers employment, especially public-sector and institutional hiring, highlighting well-paid roles and urging readers to act on new opportunities. Her reporting on major civic and recreational projects explains what is being built, how much it costs, and where it stands in approvals. She also writes about local businesses, food, and attractions, using concrete numbers, specific locations, and direct calls to action.