If you spend a reasonable amount of time on social media, you’ve noticed a distinct lack of news on your feed.

That’s not new. For the past two years, news websites such as The Citizen have been blocked from sharing direct links on Facebook and Instagram (see the link at the end of this story to find out why).

To some social media scrollers, it’s a good thing. They appreciate having slightly less unsolicited clutter. But news content is nominal in comparison to the unsolicited advertising and overall junk that fills our daily social media feeds these days.

The decision to eliminate only news sources from social media makes life less convenient for everyone, including both journalists and people wanting to know what’s going on in their neighbourhoods.

 Sure, a simple Google search will get you there, but most won’t take the time to do this, unless prompted by a headline that sounds like it’s worth investigating.

For small news outlets like The Citizen, caught in the middle of a federal government and Meta standoff, it’s been a tough two years.

As best we can, we try to come to you on social media, sharing photos and headlines. The hard part is finding a simple way of getting you to us, so you can read full stories.

Over the years, we’ve tried a few indirect workarounds. Eventually they get shut down.

In recent months, a relatively effective workaround has been to channel readers through a site called Let Me Google That For You. It takes a bit of patience to let the prompt run a slow automated search on one’s behalf.

You may have to remind it, in the next step, that you’re “not a robot.”

Before long, the user is seeing a photo and caption connected to the article they seek. When they click on the tiny caption below the photo, tada, they’re in. Whew!

You’ll be glad to know, though, that there is a better, easier, and completely direct way to find The Citizen. It’s so simple that even the technically challenged can do it.

By adding a direct link for The Citizen to your phone’s home screen, or your computer desktop, you can check for local news with a single click. No fuss, no copy and paste, and no fighting to navigate through indirect avenues.

Go ahead and try it on your phone. Run a Google search for The Niverville Citizen. Click on the link and open the webpage. (Or you could just visit www.nivervillecitizen.com directly.) Then tap the three dots at the upper right of the page to find a scroll-down list. Click on “Add to Home Screen.” That’s it.

The method may slightly vary depending on one’s phone, but it’s uncomplicated.

The Citizen publishes new stories virtually every day, often more than one, from the latest Nighthawks updates to news from your local council and stories that matter to you and your fellow locals, like debates over AI data centres, announcement about highway twinning projects, the arrival of new doctors, the opening of new residential developments and commercial businesses, and so much more.

We aim, as always, to keep our coverage local so every story matters to every reader. In fact, we’re the only news source dedicated to bringing you all the important stuff happening in your hometown.