5118_Australia-Pacific Province Online News Service

June 17, 2019

By Mr Michael Gartland
AUL Communications Officer

Melbourne, Australia, 17 June 2019 -- The online news service of the Australia-Pacific province has undergone a complete renovation. Now entitled The Links (available here: https://news.salesians.org.au), it will include a wide selection of news in a variety of formats, mostly focusing on news from around the province, presented in the high-quality manner that is expected by modern on-line audiences.

It will feature regular updates from around the parishes, schools, youth ministry projects and other such news events from around the province, as well as feature articles and interviews about interesting people and figures within the province, personal reflections and vocation stories. The Links will also serve as a place for budding young writers to publish their works, provided they are related to the Salesian mission in some way.

The Links was chosen as the name for a twofold reason. Don Bosco initiated the Salesian Bulletin to link the Salesians to the Co-operators; The Links aims to continue and expand on this proud tradition. The communities of the Australia-Pacific province are spread out and very remote from one another, and so The Links serve to connect these to each other. Furthermore, the Australia-Pacific province finds itself fairly remote in a global sense and will also continually seek to connect its readers in the Australia-Pacific province to Salesian and Catholic stories from around the world.

Secondly, when if you find something interesting on the web and want to pass it on to a friend or colleague, often you will send them a link. Scrolling through social media channels, we are often inundated with bad news stories, yet The Links believes that there are still plenty of good stories out there, and aims to link the works and the stories of the Salesians to young people, finding them where they are spending their recreational time. In this way, it will serve to be a light to its readers, especially the younger ones who can find themselves lost in an overwhelming tide of negative stories.

The change was inspired by the requests of both the Rector-Major and Pope Francis to ensure that Salesians and Catholics are using the available Social Communications technologies to the best of our abilities in reaching our audiences. Readers are often more distrustful of true stories presented poorly than they are of false stories presented well – after all, if we care and believe in our message then it only serves that we present it to the best quality possible!

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