Right in the Centre Ken Waddell

disinformation that has come to dominate discussion and impact on our safety and public discourse?”

Bitove cited statistics from the News Poverty Map showing that 361 news outlets have closed across Canada since 2008. He also noted the Canadian Media Directors’ Council says that over 3,000 editorial and noneditorial news jobs have been lost since 2020.

That closure scenario has played out in Manitoba in the community newspaper industry. In the past few years, newspapers have shut down in Melita, Reston, Deloraine, Souris, Brandon, Carberry, Altona, Morden-Winkler, Carman, Stonewall, Selkirk and Gimli-Arborg.

Bitove also pointed out that the tech giants are “manipulating” their algorithms so fewer readers see vital news stories. Just about every social media site user has voiced complaints about feeds being manipulated. Everyone knows that if you do a search on a particular product, you will be flooded with ads for that or similar products. The internet is both tracking us and controlling what we see.

News Media Canada (NMC)said it wants to see increased ad spending from the government. NMC CEO Paul Deegan said, “The federal government needs to put its adver tising dollars where its mouth is. It is unacceptable that they spent just $6 million on print ads out of an advertising budget of $140 million.”

The situation that Deegan is speaking of is especially annoying in that Canadian dollars, be they spent by governments or corporations spent on internet advertising, goes to the U.S, never to be seen again in Canadians’ bank accounts.

Changes are coming in the journalism field. Newspapers are gaining strength, especially locally owned newspapers. Advertisers and readers alike are realizing that reliable and relevant information is more dependable, the closer you are to the sources. In contrast, news and ads on the internet and even on television can be as phoney as a three dollar bill.

It has been said that there are three things you need in real estate; location, location, location. In journalism it’s local, local, local!

It’s nice to see the trend in journalism is trying to head back to local but it won’t last without advertising dollars.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being the view of the Banner & Press staff.

As I was walking today, a name from the past rose, strong and proud. Stanley Kalinowski. There was a memory of him sitting at our kitchen table and, in his heavy Polish accent, proudly declaring ‘I come from old country’. My children, listening from afar, stifled laughter, for that was a prominent line from a fashionable television program. I recall him asking Ed to take the hood ornament off his car and putting it on his truck he needed the orientation on the ornament to his being in the centre of the road. Ed refused. It was often easier to talk about Stanley than to talk to him. His English was rough, not as rough as he would want one to believe, and his manners lacking. Rumours had it that he had unsuccessfully tried the mail order bride route, that he had got his start in Canada by smuggling gold teeth gained through World War Two conflict into Canada by hiding them in his beloved accordion. The very accordion he played at many local talent nights.

So, I did what I do well, researched his history in the Riding Mountain History Book. There is quite a lengthy review of his life, written by Morfydd Smith, and I can see him telling her that she needed to record his history over her asking if she could…And here are some of the facts. Stanley was born in Poland, into a comfortably settled family, his father a judge. With political turmoil came relocation to a farm, then Stanley and his sister sold their share of the farm and purchased a flour mill. In 1938, he was conscripted into the Polish army. In 1939, Poland was crushed between the Russian and German armies and Stanley was sent as a prisoner of war to Siberia. And it was subsistent existence from there on. It was hard work, cutting logs unless the temperature was below -40 F, poor food at a cost and biting, bitter, unending cold. Care packages from his sister, 13 by his count, containing pork, fat, flour, and sometimes a blanket, were the difference between life and death. “The misery, human agony and despair of such conditions was not lessened but the fact, that after working for eight hours they came back to camp and buried those who had died in their absence.”

In 1941, the prisoners were released, travelled until they came under the command of the British, receiving the care and nutrition that they so desperately needed. Recovering health took months and then Stanley served in the Polish Division of the British 8th Army. The service to the British Commonwealth gained him the privilege to come to Canada. He headed to Tony Zagula’s farm, east of Riding Mountain, Tony and Stanley’s father had been farming neighbours in Poland. Through hard work Stanley made a life for himself, raising horses and farming. So proud to be a Canadian.

So what triggered my thoughts of Stanley today? One more negative detail about our political leader. We have seen too many of them in the last years… When people complained Stanley about conditions in Canada, he was quick to encourage them to go see what it was like with true hardship and oppression, “ I pay your ticket. One way. No return.”

Thank you Stanley for putting life into some perspective.

Neil StrohScheiN

lookiNg for loviNg people.

Roman soldiers were tough. They had to be. They were the face of the Roman empire in the countries Rome had conquered and absorbed into its ever expanding empire. And in the Israel of Jesus’ day, Roman soldiers were everywhere.

They patrolled the borders; protecting the empire and its people from invasions by their enemies. They acted as a security force; protecting the emperors and regional governors from possible assassins. And they were a police force, enforcing Roman laws, arresting those suspected of crimes and at times, executing those who were convicted of “capital” crimes (crimes for which the penalty was death).

Most Roman soldiers were thick skinned, heartless and cruel. They knew that they were not loved by those they governed. The “colonists (those who lived in countries Rome conquered)’ wanted the soldiers to pack up their weapons and go home. The soldiers would gladly have obliged. But they had a job to do and until the Emperor told them that they could go home on leave, they had to stay put and do their duties.

That’s what one execution detail was expecting as they reported for duty on a Friday morning 2000 years ago. Three notorious criminals were to be executed that day and these men were going to enjoy every minute they spent putting them to death.

But then they head that there had been a change of plans. Barabbas, the worst of the three, was being released. His place was being taken by a man named Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee. His crime? Well-he hadn’t done anything worthy of death. So why was he there? Because the Jewish religious leaders didn’t like him and used a bit of bribery and a lot of blackmail to get the Roman governor (Pontius Pilate) to let Barabbas go free and crucify Jesus in his place. Knowing this, these Roman soldiers wondered how someone as innocent as Jesus was would face death by crucifixion.

They were in for a huge surprise. Never once did Jesus try to talk them out of putting him to death, threaten them or condemn them for their actions. All he said was: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

These hardened Roman soldiers watched Jesus for six hours that Friday. They knew that, in his public life and ministry, he had shown people how to live. Now he was showing them how to die. The love he showed to the few friends who sat at the foot of his cross, to the crowd that mocked and ridiculed him as he suffered and died and to the religious leaders who had condemned him to death so impacted these soldiers that they said to each other: “Truly this man was the Son of God.”