> “The good news is Facebook can't have any say in what we write, when we write it, or how we write it,” Smith said, “And they have increasingly little impact o

> “The good news is Facebook can't have any say in what we write, when we write it, or how we write it,” Smith said, “And they have increasingly little impact on who actually sees our stories. So we're able to get stories in front of people through, not just other social media platforms and through our website, but also through our newsletter. And so I just don't think that Facebook can effectively silence a news organization, and certainly doesn't have the same kind of impact that it would have had two years ago or 10 years ago.” I think it's unlikely they even noticed in the first place, but let's grant the implication that Facebook did this as a reprisal. It's petty, but also completely within their right, and sort of a natural reaction. I'm glad they have (or believe they have) other ways of getting news out to people beyond just social media. The lesson to learn, imho, is that it was a bad idea for the news industry to completely hitch its wagon to social media in the first place. Maybe it seemed necessary at the time, but it was a bad idea. It wasn't so much a risk of being at the mercy of those platforms, but a fait accompli, and meanwhile their other audience-building skills atrophied. So, while the website and newsletter are probably good to keep up, I would not be so smug about having other social media platforms to turn to, as they are not really the robust solutions they may seem to be. And I'm not a Kansas Reflector reader, but my guess is Facebook actually did influence what, how, and when they wrote articles, assuming they are anything like literally every other news outlet in the entire world.