Become a WS Member
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
155.00092
Summary
The Western Standard has lived up to its mission statement: to be the independent voice of the new west. We re making a big difference, and we re giving Westerners a homegrown alternative to the big, government-owned and government-funded media.
Transcript
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I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard. I want to take two
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minutes to tell you why it's important to become a member. Our media landscape is
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dominated by a few big players right now, almost all of which are owned by big
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Eastern corporate interests or by the government itself. As taxpayers we are
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forced to pay billions of dollars every year to support the liberal CBC, but
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even now the non-government-owned mainstream media are on the take,
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receiving hundreds of millions of dollars every year in a massive taxpayer-funded
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bailout. This means that even those few bright spots of independence and free
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thinking in the media are now on the government dole and cannot speak out for
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fear that the government could pull their funding at any time. There are still a
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few great journalists in the non-government-owned media, but they
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mostly work for large corporate interests that are owned and operated
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out of Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. Western voices, voices that speak up for the
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West without fear of what their bosses in Toronto will say, are far and few
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between. The West needs strong and independent voices that it is willing to
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take on the issues facing our people. This is why we brought back the Western
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Standard in 2019. Since relaunching, the Western Standard has burst onto the scene
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and shaken up the Western Canadian media landscape. With a small budget and
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dedicated team of reporters and opinion columnists, we have quickly become the
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third most read online news platform in Western Canada, with an average monthly
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readership of 1.5 to 2 million page views. Our news team is made up of credible
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reporters recruited from the mainstream media, but who focus on issues that are
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all too often ignored by the old big players. Our opinion columnists take on
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controversial issues that most of the old players are too afraid to touch
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directly. In our first year of operations, the Western Standard has lived up to our
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mission statement, to be the independent voice of the New West. We're making a big
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difference, and we are giving Westerners a homegrown alternative to the big
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government-owned and government-funded media. We're changing the conversation. We
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refuse to accept a penny of the big media bailout. We don't have deep pockets from
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special interest groups. That is why we need you, the reader, to step up and become
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a member of the Western Standard. You've become a Standard member for just $10 a
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month with unlimited access, much cheaper than a subscription to one of the big
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government-funded newspapers. If you can't afford that much, you can also do a
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cheaper $5 basic membership, giving you access to 20 articles a month. For our first
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year, we've had no paywall whatsoever, and I know that some of you wish that it
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would remain so, but this is the price of having a media left in this country that
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aren't on the government take. If you want there to be any independent Western
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media left, we need you to step up and support the Western Standard. We've built
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something great here in a short period of time, and we're making a big
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difference. Together, we can make sure that we have a voice that speaks for the