Media for voters, dismissed by voters?: No VFM in The PEAK

Mark Latham - Founderof VoterMedia.org is not the first to be turned down by the peak in an effort to self-promote a fun new idea for SFU students. SFU's February's 6 'Voter-Funded Media' (VFM) February Contestants (myself included) received a copy of the Opinion Article he called, "We can create media diversity".

No, the PEAK often has plans of its own and our ground-breaking innovations might as well be centrally-dominated by less and less understandable comic strips, or has that already happened? I think the PEAK should enter the March VFM Contest. Or is Media accountabliity too much for them to handle? I dare you!! Read what Mr.Lathan wanted to say and decide for yourself:

"Kimberly Brown’s article “Monopoly: Media Edition” (The Peak, February 4, 2008: www.the-peak.ca/article/1863) explained clearly how the rising concentration of media ownership is weakening Canadian democracy. We cannot elect the best leaders and hold them accountable, if we lack the political insight that a vigorous diversity of skilled journalists can provide.

But there is hope: a rapidly growing media reform movement is exploring many ways of strengthening public-interest journalism. One strategy is now being developed in Vancouver, and tested at UBC and SFU. It’s called voter-funded media, or VFM.

The basic idea is simple: let voters allocate some public funds to competing media. This will give the media more incentive to serve the public interest. To test this model, I sponsored the first-ever VFM implementation in UBC’s January 2007 student election. Thirteen media groups competed to give student voters insight into electoral candidates’ platforms, experience and so on. We were pleased with the results, so implemented VFM again in the January 2008 election – see www.votermedia.org/ubc for links to media content, especially the UBC Insiders blog.

A VFM competition has now started at SFU, with six contestants so far – see www.votermedia.org/sfu. Improving on the UBC once-a-year model, the SFU design lets students vote for competing media year-round, with prizes awarded monthly. The upcoming SFSS elections and referendum will show us what these diverse voices can contribute.

So check out the SFU voter-funded media websites, and vote on their quality. Enter the contest as an individual blogger, or put together a new campus media group. Our goal is to spread this political reform to larger democracies, as well as to corporations."

Also see http://votermedia.blogspot.com/2008/02/ubc-vfm-results.html for Mr. Latham's thoughts on UBC's VFM.