Outrage articles exist for clicks, not converts
Discussion turns to why such an article exists: not to change minds but to generate hits and clicks, which translate into ad revenue. The hosts walk through the ad economics — a site boasting 10 million hits when most readers disagree with the article — and note the actual ads served on the page, including bookstore.com and the article author's own children's book, The Adventures of Rumple Pimple. The in-studio guest adds that people are drawn to the wrong thing for lack of information, like sheep following.
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Dear LFTP: should meteorologists stop saying 'gloomy'?
- Should TV meteorologists stop calling rainy weather miserable, gloomy, or dreary?
A host reads a letter complaining that TV meteorologists calling rain 'miserable,' clouds 'gloomy,' and gray days 'dreary' is irresponsible toward emotionally vulnerable viewers.
From No. 492 · Show Me The Toes
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Declining faith and deaths of despair study
- Is declining faith fueling a rise in deaths of despair?
A host reads a Daily Mail article on a Wellesley College study linking rising 'deaths of despair' (suicide, alcohol and opioid abuse) among middle-aged white Americans to declining faith and church attendance.
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What kids face that parents misread: identity, media, truth in love
- What are kids facing today that their parents are not seeing correctly?
Asked what teenagers experience that parents do not see correctly, Jenny points to media and identity, including sexual and gender identity, which parents do not know what to do with.
From No. 480 · Youth Initiative
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Nathaniel's book-writing crisis, false teachers, and protecting what matters
- How much Christian writing about Jesus is gasbagging versus genuinely necessary?
- How do you identify false teaching?
Nathaniel is in a crisis after reading N. T. Wright's Simply Jesus, feeling like a dumb dumb next to eloquent writers, which opens a discussion of the hubris of writing books…
From No. 454 · Read, Protect, and Complain About Your Husband