News24, South Africa's biggest online news Platform is moving to a digital subscription platform. 

It signals a change in global media consumption. The New York Times and Washington Post are both subscription news channels. 

Why is it gaining ground? Because people are turning to reliable news sources in the face of global crises. 

I spend almost no time in Facebook anymore because the news there was so fake it just got me upset and moody. 

That is sad, really, because I found in my own network, a lot of worthy friends who posted worthy content. 

But I don't need to make myself feel worse about life. Life is tough enough as it is. So the fake stuff is driving me away. 

What really worried me was how many spiritual leaders gladly passed on any bad news or rumor they could get their hands on. 

And when challenged, they all said, "I just passed on what I received", even though it took me less than 2 minutes to prove what seemed fake, to be fake indeed. 

But the pragmatic, thinking world is tired of it. Reasonable souls are moving away from informal channels, which are abused by people with agendas. 

As such, most of what I have seen has an underlying racial motive, which in SA amounts to disparagement of our black government. 

Cambridge Analytica abused Facebook extensively to help get Donald Trump elected with a raft of fake news stories. 

But Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels are now flagging his and other fake news stories, because if they don't consumers will migrate to reliable channels. 

Many Christians felt that they had a duty to bear circulate bad news, but they were only ever called to share the good news. 

Anyway, professional journalism is now gaining value in the world and people are increasingly willing to pay for it. 

But in all fairness, with the recent shocks to advertising flows, the move is also intended to sustain the journalism industry. 

That of course means that subscription channels will be free of advertising which will give added momentum to the cause, as a lot of fake news is just click-bait for cheap and nasty advertisers. 

I think this is all a healthy development in a world where the original causes of crisis are generally less damaging than the rumor mills. 

(c) Peter Missing @ me2u2all.blogspot.com