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VFM intro, or, how complicated can counting be?
Posted By Maayan Kreitzman On October 23, 2007 @ 10:35 pm In News | Comments Disabled
Voter Funded Media, the contest that saw the birth of this and other (now defunct) charming student publications, is soon to be re-launched for this year. Yay! The media-reform project is meant to improve media culture, and by extension democracy in general. This is theoretically accomplished by making media into a public good: you reward media by votes, from a public fund, that voters pay into. In our case, that means that when you vote in AMS elections, you’ll also have a ballot for your favorite elections-media group, and prizes will be allocated accordingly. Also, our “voter funding” is actually being proffered (to the tune of $8000) by VFM-originator Mark Latham, not a public fee.
Last year the contest had many successes and some failures. This year there are some changes afoot. Here’s an intro to a few features of the contest:
Last year, VFM sparked some really decent debate. The candidates had to learn alot, and know the issues. It established a lively discourse during election time that was great to be part of. The new media that popped up was exciting and fresh. However, VFM didn’t increase overall voter turnout, which is still mired at about 10%. Arguably, the best media contestants did not win. And FVM took up alot of candidates’ time, preventing them from pursuing more traditional campaigning methods and getting out the vote. The good thing about VFM though, is that it improves with maturity: with more years, the contest will have more momentum to begin with, and the quality of contestants will be progressively pushed up leaving little room of get-rich-quick punks and deadbeat hacks.
We’ll see how things go this year. UBC Insiders’ awesome VFM roster is being established as we speak, so stay tuned. Here’s to media! *clink*
FYI: The VFM contest is hiring an administrator. This person would be reporting to the AMS Elections Administrator, Brian Peiovesan, and they’re offering 750 bucks. The job posting is found HERE [1], for those interested.
A chat I had with Mark Latham, and revelations thereof, can be found HERE [2]
Article printed from UBC Insiders: http://ubcinsiders.ca
URL to article: http://ubcinsiders.ca/2007/10/vfm-intro-or-how-complicated-can-counting-be-2/
URLs in this post:
[1] HERE: http://www.amsubc.ca/index.php/ams/opportunities/voter_funded_media_administrator/
[2] HERE: http://ubcinsiders.blogspot.com/2007/06/chitchat-with-mark-latham-hes-going-to.html
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