Post 187--Media SOS

Yes, I'm back.  This time I was off to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for two weeks,  where the core of my in-law family lives. Not only did I meet Fran, my wife, there at Calvin College, but so did our three kids meet their spouses there.  Educational incest, you say?  Perhaps, but it put us all on a good course, at least, economically and, to a certain degree,  worldviewishly as well. Well, whatever....  It's the place where I would like to see my cremains strewn over its pond, since that place is the navel of our small clan.  Not sure it will happen.  Okay, back to the blog business.  A short one today. A cry for help from Religion News Service under the caption "Sunday Morning Editor's Note."  Again, it's American but affects us Canadians as much as it does them.  Here's the editor's plea to all of us:

This week I’d like to ask for your help, and I promise it doesn’t involve money. I was at the Online News Association annual conference last week and one thing that was patently clear was the monopolistic power Facebook and Google now wield in the news business. They get to distribute news for free, while they have decimated ad revenues for the creators of news content. As digital media strategist Heidi N. Moore recently lamented in the Columbia Journalism Review, "Facebook and Google collect 99 percent of all digital-advertising revenue growth in the U.S., leaving only crumbs for media companies."  So here’s my ask. Don’t let Facebook and Google decide what news you get — which they do based on data you’ve most likely given them unwittingly, through your browsing history and other information they can track. Instead, be an active news reader. Put a little extra effort into getting your daily fix. Go directly to your favorite publications’ home pages. Bookmark a few of them, and when you want to know what’s happening in the world, make it a habit of checking them first. And I hope, of course, that RNS will be one of them. I promised it wouldn't cost anything, and it might just help ensure the viability of the news industry that is so essential to democracy.  I suggest you read Moore's lament mentioned above.  Tomorrow is Canadian Thanksgiving Day. I wish you all a time brimming with gratitude for all the things God has given us here in Canada--or, at least, most of us, though perhaps a declining number?  The thing I appreciate the most is our orderly way of living. Compared to an absolute ideal, we probably have a long way to go, but in contrast to where our new neighbours, the refugees, come from, we live in heaven. Just ask them!  Have a thankful one!