I solidly agree with Mark Latham’s conclusion that currently media is failing miserably at asking the questions and providing information which the public needs to make informed decisions; failing to lead debate and discussion on important local, provincial, national and societal issues; being more focused on the comics (style) than stimulating debate and discussion (substance).

Indeed, I have expressed my opinions on these failings to the local publishers and editors as well as to the CEO of the corporations owning the Abbotsford newspapers.

However I think his concept of creating another government bureaucracy to address this pressing and important problem/issue is based too much on “thinking within the box”.

Given the effect that the internet is having on information dissemination, the rapid technological changes (pod/web casts, digital recording and editing etc) and the current operational and fiscal realities of print and broadcast media I think that the media is in such a state flux, even chaos, that “thinking outside the box” is where the best solution or solutions will be found.

Rather than seeking to find and impose “the” solution I would argue that the best approach would be to encourage experimentation.

In that regard I would like to draw attention to the current inform the public/ask the questions/raise the issues/wide open debate/readership inclusive/it is about content media experiment taking place in Abbotsford, BC.

A brief background: Abbotsford has two chain owned local papers; a third paper, The Post, was started up with much more open and interesting editorial content than either of the two long established chain papers; The Post was bought out by Canwest Global, owners of the Abbotsford Times, who proceeded to gut all the editorial content and turn it into a entertainment insert – managing to turn what had been interesting reading into boring entertainment pabulum.

In October of 2008 AT (Abbotsford Today) was launched at www.abbotsfordtoday.ca. The four columnists dropped from the pages of the Post became columnists for the new AT. While originally envisioned as strictly an online publication Abbotsford Today currently publishes a monthly print news-magazine edition supported by local advertisers and reader subscriptions.

I state upfront that I know the people involved in putting AT together. I was a booster and supporter of AT’s editor when he was involved in founding The Post. I enthusiastically cheered the people involved on when AT was merely a glint in their eyes. Not because they were friends but because Abbotsford so badly needed an open and free news/opinion/issues media voice. And if this experiment was successful it could be adapted to and implemented in other local (even provincial or national) markets.

There are several things I particularly liked about this model.

It reminds me of the local paper I grew up reading. Local ownership so policy is set locally; reader subscriptions mean that content has to be of interest to the readers, the paper is not just the wrapping for flyer delivery; the end user (the reader) evaluates the content and its usefulness or interest and expresses that by subscribing or not subscribing; local businesses/advertisers get to participate and express their support/thoughts thru the purchase or non-purchase of advertising.

The major web presence means timely presentation of the news and breaking stories/issues. It also allows more reader participation – letters to the editor, stories, comment and all the space needed for reader writings. It allows more content since it is not limited to X number of pages.

The model is flexible, adaptable and evolving. Given the state of flux, chaos and change media is in at this time these characteristics are needed if we are to arrive at a product that delivers the information and content that readers not only want but need.

It is this state of flux, chaos and change media is currently in that has me favouring an approach to encourage experimentation and diversity rather than trying to find and impose “the” solution. Let market forces, the public and readers evaluate and judge the models. Then we can adapt and spread the models tested and appropriate to the media market.

It would be nice if there was a pool of money that could be used to provide seed funding for experiments such as Abbotsford Today and I would certainly encourage and support the establishment of such a fund.

Ultimately it comes down to the readers judgment as to the value of the media being offered to them. Which reminds me – I need to write a cheque and send in my subscription to Abbotsford Today.

***************************************************************************

New Ideas for the New Year, 2009 (http://www.thetyee.ca/News/2008/12/22/NewIdeas09/)
Idea #2: Voter-funded Media
Mark Latham wants readers to control the purse strings.
For a former financial executive, Mark Latham doesn’t have a whole lot of faith in the invisible hand’s power to give us the news we need.
Who can blame him? Two companies control half (http://www.cna-acj.ca/en/aboutnewspapers/circulation) of the country’s daily newspapers. Both plan big layoffs and one of the two, CanWest, is in 10-figure debt . South of the border, the company that owns the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune has declared bankruptcy (http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/12/10/ap5805933.html).
And even before the economy went into the tank, media critics ((http://www.freepress.net/media_issues/journalism) accused the industry of prioritizing financial over journalistic considerations.
But Latham believes he has developed a model that will increase the media’s public accountability while creating additional revenue.
“I don’t think you can get good enough media for free,” the founder of votermedia.org told the Tyee. “But the way you design the way media get revenue will affect the information you get.”
Voter-funded media (http://www.votermedia.org/)) evolved from Latham’s earlier work on corporate governance and is based on the simple premise that money persuades. Allow the public to make media funding decisions and news organizations will become more accountable to readers, rather than the advertisers or government who currently control the purse strings. The result, according to Latham, should be a knock-on effect leading to a better-informed electorate, better elected officials and better public policy.
Anyone could vote online to decide which news outlets should get a portion of a designated pool of public money. In theory, the funding model would free news organizations from the thrall of corporate advertisers while avoiding the risk of government control. But that doesn’t mean Latham wants to do away altogether with the dominant free-market system or the more traditional kind of public funding that keeps the CBC going. Instead, he sees voter-funded media as a third option that would foster greater media diversity.
Latham has tested his idea at UBC and Langara College during student election campaigns, in Vancouver during the six months leading up to last month’s municipal vote and now, province-wide ahead of the May election. Though he has struggled to attract and retain regular voters, he said he has been pleased with the wisdom of those who have participated. (Full disclosure: The Tyee finished tops in the Vancouver Election Blog contest (http://votermedia.org/van/totals.html). It initially encouraged readers to vote for it but ceased the practice several months before election day.)
Not so fast
Some media experts are sceptical.
Ross Howard, a journalism instructor at Vancouver’s Langara College, readily admits there are problems with Canadian media. They don’t question society deeply enough, they don’t cover the media well, there is too much corporate concentration and journalists working for major companies are sometimes “inhibited or self-censoring.”
But he worries the public could value entertainment over the need for a watchdog and imagines a scenario where “52,000 teenage boys would all get online and vote for Monster Truck Magazine.”
Latham argues that even individuals who spend their time and money on infotainment may rationally decide to allot public funds to a service they recognize as essential, even if they only use it for 15 minutes right before an election.
“The value of media is not measured by the amount of time you spend watching it,” Latham said.
Stephen Ward, the former director of UBC’s School of Journalism who is now at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, likes the idea of public input into the distribution of media funding, but also worries about the outcome of a “popularity contest.” What’s more, he wonders if voting on the finished product might not mean the evaluation is coming too late.
“It’s too based on what people have already done or are doing when, in fact, we know that one of the things wrong with our journalism is that we don’t do stories about many, many stories in many, many parts of the world,” he said. “So how does that get onto the agenda?”
Latham admits there will be growing pains but believes time will allow media organizations to develop a track record that will let the public vote accordingly. He argues readers may reward an initially unpopular editorial stance five years down the line.
“After it’s been running for a while, I think what you’ll see happen is new media will grow that are serving this source of revenue and they will build reputations that will appeal to the voters so that they’ll get more revenue,” he said.
For a few dollars more
The source of the money for voters to distribute could pose another challenge.
“The idea is the funding should ideally come from that voting community if that voting community has a pool of funds, whether it’s corporate funds or tax funds,” according to Latham. “It would be in the interests of the members of that community to fund a blog ranking because they’ll get better information for their voters.”
But Kathleen Cross, a lecturer in communications at Simon Fraser University, believes Latham will have a hard time convincing people the media require more public funds.
She thinks objections are likely from both the public and those within the media industry concerned, perhaps mistakenly, that such funds will translate into government control.
“There’s a lot of resistance to channelling public funds into something that supposedly doesn’t have accountability,” she said. “When you look at the kind of critiques of the CBC in the last 10 to 15 years, it would be even more so with this kind of a system.”
And yet, media subsidies are not uncommon in Europe where Cross says a number of countries tax commercial media revenues and redirect the money to organizations that do not rely on advertising.
The CBC aside, Canada has some modest federal subsidies of its own, such as the Canada Magazine Fund, which promotes Canadian content and the Publications Assistance Program, which provides postal discounts for magazines and non-daily newspapers.
Howard would like to see such subsidies increase “massively” and thinks it would be useful to see federal funding agencies test Latham’s idea for a year without actually disbursing funds.
“I’d like to at least see if, through a website, you can test this proposition that Canadians will repeatedly vote in favour of what they like in the way of media and that when you total it up, it won’t all just be entertainment media,” he said.
Tomorrow the world
Despite her reservations, Cross called Latham’s idea “bold” and said it could serve as a partial antidote to the advertising-based system, which often produces coverage that is “problematic and unrepresentative.”
Ward points to the year-old ProPublica, funded by an American private foundation and specializing in investigative reporting, or the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, which gives money to approved projects, as other ways of promoting alternative journalism. He doesn’t want to discourage creative ideas but suggests Latham’s model needs some restructuring.
Latham is the first to acknowledge voter-funded media is a work in progress. Right now, his primary focus is creating a new website, or “building a better mousetrap” as he puts it, in the hopes of adding to the disappointing 450 voters who participated in his first large-scale trial.
But the fact that voter-funded media is still very much at the experimental stage isn’t keeping Latham from dreaming big.
He envisions a system where each country, province, municipality and its corporate stockholders, labour unions and professional associations could weigh in.
“The idea is to have a blog ranking and competition — a separate competition — for every voting community in the world.”