Wednesday, February 22, 2012

$5k for Student Media at ASUC Berkeley @asucpres @dailycaleditor @jrue

I'm looking forward to visiting U C Berkeley next week to meet people in the student union (ASUC), the newspaper (Daily Cal) and the School of Journalism.

On Monday Feb 27 I'm scheduled to meet ASUC President Vishalli Loomba, staff members Janice Crowder and Marilyn Stager, and Elections Council Chair Pamudh Kariyawasam. We'll discuss VoterMedia.org's offer of $5,000 in matching funds for the ASUC to try VoterMedia to improve voter information and engagement -- see briefing paper at votermedia.org/publications. Sample ballot at votermedia.org/asuc.

On Tuesday Feb 28 I'll meet with Daily Cal Editor Tomer Ovadia. I see he's co-proposing a referendum to raise student fees to fund the Daily Cal and other campus publications (Facebook event announcements here and here). Community funding for community media is a great idea! VoterMedia is similar to this plan, except that the funding is allocated by student voters through time, and any campus media can compete for funds. This keeps the media accountable to students -- see interviews of UBC students, including their newspaper editor, in video Mainstream Media vs Voter Media.

The ASUC allocates over $50k annually to various student publications -- see 2011-2012 Budget. A VoterMedia competition is designed to support those media that create the most benefit for the student community per dollar cost. It's Participatory Budgeting for media.

On Thursday March 1, I'll talk with Susan Rasky's Political Reporting class at the School of Journalism. We'll discuss the media economics underlying the VoterMedia blog contest design, as outlined in Newspaper Sponsorship for Municipal VoterMedia. I'll also meet faculty members Jeremy Rue and David Cohn.