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PO Box 3201
Martinsville, VA 24115
United States

Stephen H. Provost is an author of paranormal adventures and historical non-fiction. “Memortality” is his debut novel on Pace Press, set for release Feb. 1, 2017.

An editor and columnist with more than 30 years of experience as a journalist, he has written on subjects as diverse as history, religion, politics and language and has served as an editor for fiction and non-fiction projects. His book “Fresno Growing Up,” a history of Fresno, California, during the postwar years, is available on Craven Street Books. His next non-fiction work, “Highway 99: The History of California’s Main Street,” is scheduled for release in June.

For the past two years, the editor has served as managing editor for an award-winning weekly, The Cambrian, and is also a columnist for The Tribune in San Luis Obispo.

He lives on the California coast with his wife, stepson and cats Tyrion Fluffybutt and Allie Twinkletail.

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On Life

Ruminations and provocations.

Filtering by Category: Social Media

From politics to COVID: Living in limbo is killing us

Stephen H. Provost

It might seem weird to think of being stuck as chaotic, but that’s exactly what it is. Think of it like a pinball machine, or a glass bottle with fireflies or supercharged particles zinging around inside, bouncing off the glass and one another in a frenetic yet futile attempt to escape. That’s what a mind living in limbo feels like. It’s exhausting and, if it goes on too long, can feel debilitating.

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How Comcast is profiting off the pandemic — at our expense

Stephen H. Provost

Is it a coincidence that Comcast’s data caps suddenly appeared during in the midst of this pandemic, when workers are more dependent than ever on the internet? Are they just sticking it to remote workers and others isolated during the crisis, or is there some other motivation?

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Inauguration: It was like a fever had broken

Stephen H. Provost

I watched most of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ inauguration Wednesday, and I was struck by one thing. … The best way to describe it is feeling like a fever had broken: that moment when you’re lying in your bed, exhausted from fighting a really bad case of the flu, but the chills are gone, the headache had subsided, and you’re no longer shivering. When you feel weak from the fight, but no longer weak from the disease.

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How journalists traded truth for balance — and gave us this mess

Stephen H. Provost

In a desperate attempt to retain their audience, newspapers and broadcast networks changed their mission. Instead of simply reporting the facts, they started interviewing spin doctors on both sides of the political fence. In short, they replaced devotion to the truth with a quest for balance as their prime directive.

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How far has journalism fallen? Many outlets are content to mirror Twitter

Stephen H. Provost

News “stories,” such as they are, often consist of an introductory paragraph or two, followed by a long string of screen-shot tweets under a generic headline that contains the words “Twitter reacts to” or something similar. This is not journalism. … It’s just copying stuff down. There’s no storytelling, no background, and very little context. Why should anyone bother even reading it instead of reading, well, Twitter?

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The business model that could save — or destroy — Facebook

Stephen H. Provost

Bottom line: Nobody likes how Facebook handles things, and a lot of people would love to change it, but they’re basically held hostage because the platform is the only one to offer access to billions of users. And one person (Zuckerberg) dictates how that platform is run. If Facebook were a country, it would be the largest dictatorship in the world.

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