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ryanflanagan.bsky.social
Former journalist now working in media relations. Living in Kitchener after a few years away.
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The top four stories on the CBC Manitoba news site right now are about forest fires that have led to evacuation orders for four different communities. To be clear, that's four separate fires affecting four different places. I've never seen anything like this in northern Manitoba.

submitted 14 days ago • 2 comments

Does anyone know of a good alternative to Pocket? There has to be a better solution than creating a dedicated folder in my browser's bookmarks, right?

submitted 22 days ago • 0 comments

Very excited for my favourite part of election night: watching TV networks try to entertain their audiences for the two hours between first results from Atlantic Canada and first results from anywhere else in Canada.

submitted 47 days ago • 0 comments

Chubby Checker scoring a hit with "The Twist" and following it up with "Let's Twist Again" was honestly a move decades ahead of its time, branding-wise.

submitted 48 days ago • 0 comments

People in 2025: "Remember when the news only covered stories that were actually important?" The news in 1929:

submitted 76 days ago • 0 comments

I've recently become a big fan of tennis, a sport that contains so many amazing stories. Like Alexandra Eala, who is ranked 140th by the WTA and comes from a country with no elite tennis history -- but she's beaten two of the top 5 players in the world this week!

submitted 79 days ago • 0 comments

"As God is my witness, I thought bunnies could fly!"

submitted 79 days ago • 2 comments

And even where local news still exists, it's a shadow of what it once was. @therecord.com's newspaper output peaked at 33,812 pages in 1989. Last year it was 12,712. That's a lot less news! (To be fair, it's also a lot fewer classified ads, which helped pay for the news.)

submitted 86 days ago • 0 comments

Weirdly, Wikipedia pages for a bunch of KW restaurants have sprung up over the past year. No idea what the selection process or notability requirements are but whoever is behind this seems to be making some solid choices.

submitted 92 days ago • 1 comment

If you're looking to buy local/buy Canadian, there is some very helpful advice here. probablyworthsharing.substack.com/p/buy-canadi...

submitted 133 days ago • 3 comments

Today I learned that Chuck Berry owned a house in Kitchener for 25 years and only a handful of people seem to have known anything about it until recently www.chuckhowitt.com/post/we-call...

submitted 175 days ago • 1 comment

Was thinking about this all day and then I learned the small-town newspaper where I started my journalism career is shutting down. Another proof point.

submitted 179 days ago • 1 comment

So long to the home of Oopsy the Clown, Big Al, Romper Room, Agri-News with David Imrie and so much more.

submitted 212 days ago • 0 comments

As someone who is trying to simultaneously join one community (this place) and rejoin another (Waterloo Region), this starter pack is perfect. go.bsky.app/FHCHEgg

submitted 216 days ago • 2 comments

Theory: An underrated part of the reason this place is so much more pleasant than the other place is the absence of The Brands. At the other place, my feed is full of advertisements, click-generating headlines and brand-building of all kinds. Here, it's just people being themselves.

submitted 556 days ago • 0 comments