Welcome to the VFM -- Ur doing it Wrong!

I would like to direct anyone who’s listening to the fact that I had thrown my sombrero into the VFM ring, piling on some moral pressure to deliver the news … through a different lens. So if you haven’t joined yet, go to the UBC VFM side, read-up and sign-up.

What I did suddenly realize, is that behind all the bickering bullshit that I got so emerged in last year, I forgot about a few very important things that also make a difference on this campus. And one of those is VFM.

What VFM sets out to do, is build a population of informed voters that makes democracy work better because educated voters make better decisions. The monetary rewards put pressure on the participating media to put up frequent and engaging content, and the voters decide who’s doing the best job at providing what they promised. A fine premise that I had noticed brought a lot more quality content into the fray. However, what it doesn’t do as well as it should, is get new voters to the polls. But this isn’t the flaw in the project itself, rather than in those participating in it.

Let me, for a second, pick on UBC Insiders, not because there is something particularly wrong with that blog, but rather by virtue of it kicking ass every contest and raking in huge wads of cash. The promise on their blog reads: “the money we receive will be spent on website improvements.” A noble promise; and no doubt one that will be kept. However, I see one problem. Improvements of the blog will benefit only one group of people – those who are already avid or occasional readers. However, what about new readers? What about educating the people who don’t keep up, those people who don’t go to the polls because they don’t care, because they don’t know, and because they think no issue on campus actually affects them in any meaningful way? Of course, that’s our number one challenge. You just can’t pull these people out of a hat and go: “Voila: go forth and multiply” to the sound of chirping crickets and a chorus of quizzical stares. We have to grab them, we have to work for them. If we took it upon ourselves to provide the best of news/opinions on campus, then we need to make sure we’re making an actual difference

I started off in the real world. Out there, with potential readers, postering my opinions on the walls. Only later did I move to internet media, like Facebook and this blog. But even as I now lay in the closed circle of cyber-space, with a select few reading my opinions, I made sure that the circle wasn’t shut. There’s a little more to bringing quality journalism, just like there’s a little more to voter-education than making candidate write-ups available at the election booths. Still I make sure to go out, post excerpts or original material where people who don’t know about my blog can read it. How many take it to heart? Probably not a revolutionary number, but any revolution, be it in the political or cultural sense, starts with the few and spreads to the many. I have had people respond about to blogs through my postings, and I could at least imagine that a few others had read it. I’m not trying to say that this is an either/or issue, rather that VFM and real-world advertising should work side-by-side. It isn’t enough to educate and engage those who are already educated and engaged. We can’t sit back like some latter-day philosophers, twiddling our thumbs and stewing in our own sense of self-importance (read: impotence?), when the audience in front of us is but five people, two of whom are asleep and the third sitting impatiently waiting for us to finish so they can say how utterly wrong we are. One of our top priorities is to reach out wide, cast the net as far as possible, bring the most sheep into the flock. Our first job is to have an audience to bring information to, and then make sure that information is provided to the best of our abilities. In all honesty, I don’t do this as well as I want to.

From this I issue a challenge. To myself as well as my other VFMers and any other media on campus who may be listening. It is all fine and good to refine ourselves, it is a whole different challenge to raise readership. So this should be our focus. Not more or less important than quality, but on par with it, as I don’t believe the two can function without each other. Reach out there and spend some of your winnings on advertising. Put a little elbow grease in posting your information to capture audiences, on bulletin boards or in the classes. Take out a Facebook ad. Continue to reward the voters by spending money on improving content, but spend some of your funds in the real world as well. Readership isn’t that high to begin with, and getting even one more person on board is a victory. The further we stretch out our arms, the more relevant we’ll be.