Twelve joined this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome our local media. Joining us were Colin How and Leslie Ash, new owners of the Salt Spring Exchange; Gail Sjuberg, Gulf Islands Driftwood editor; and Damian Inwood, President of our soon-to-be-live local radio station, CHiR.fm.

After our Territorial Acknowledgement offered by Damian, we asked each of our guests what “excited and delighted” them. Damian began by giving us an update on CHiR.fm‘s progress going live. Currently, CHiR.fm has nearly completed its month long live test from its tower on Mt. Belcher. Broadcasting for 24 hour broadcasts, in five-hour repeating segments per day. The purpose of this four-week test is to make sure that our radio signal does not interfere with any other signals. While these five daily rotations are music, the music is required to pause every 15 minutes to announce the location of the station and how one can contact responsible individuals if the signal is causing interference. Thankfully, so far, there have been no issues with CHiR.fm‘s signal. Damian is hopeful that this month long test will conclude with no issues

While not totally surprised, he is delighted that our radio station has just received a 12-month extension to go live from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, CRTC, https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/acrtc/org.htm#. While expected, had our station not been given this one year extension, this long journey toward creating our local radio station would have ended. Happily, CHiR.fm has another year to complete its last major hurdle, the completion of the repeater from Mt. Bruce. As this is the stations’s second extension, Damian has been advised that a third extension would be unlikely. 

So, if CHiR.fm is broadcasting live successfully, why was another yearlong extension needed? Currently, the radio signal is strong for much of the north end of Salt Spring but begins to get a bit spotty around Ganges Hill. To fulfill its mission of serving all of Salt Spring, this Mt. Bruce repeater is essential. 

Unfortunately, approximately $20,000 is needed for this equipment. Its totally volunteer staff is hopeful that Salt Springers will continue to be generous raising these last dollars required for full functionality. Any money to spare? There are a variety of ways to give, even including buying some cool vinyl as that special holiday present for a loved one. Check out their website (https://chir.fm/) for ideas of how to donate. Not finding what you need? Damian (damianinwood@shaw.ca) is sure to have suggestions to help you find the perfect way to give to this important local initiative.     

Salt Spring Exchange’s co-owner Leslie shared her delight in the arrival of winter. While some may not share her delight, she is pleased to have completed all the work of a large harvest. With all her editorial and review responsibilities for the Exchange – as well as five children! – one can well understand her joy when at least that large task of cultivating and harvesting is complete for the season. 

Colin, Leslie’s partner as well as co-owner of the Exchange, told us that, while he had been coming to Salt Spring since the 1980s, this was their second winter here. Despite his so far unmet lust for a boat, he is also happy to settle in for the winter. He is most “excited and delighted” to be living in a place where everyone, even strangers, smile at one another in passing. Having lived in places in which no one seems to acknowledge each other, Colin is especially pleased that we greet one another wherever we go. Participants chimed in to agree, remarking that it is a bit shocking how rare these greetings are in other communities. Later in our time together, Colin, added that, despite the very real issues that tend to incite us, he likened Salt Spring to a sort of Brigadoon, a magical place in which we are blessed to live. 

Gail is “excited and delighted” that, despite complications, the Driftwood’s Christmas supplement will be ready on time. This required the designer on another island to flee to the local pub to do his work as power at his home had been out for three days. 

While each of our guests provide quite different forms of local media, they shared similar receptiveness to the contributions of locals. When CHiR.fm goes live, 15% of its content must be the spoken word, meaning that Salt Springers will need to step up to become part of its programming. Most issues of the Driftwood contain 100% local content. And, so much of the value of the Exchange – beyond its popular :”Buy, Sell, Trade” forum – comes directly from us, the Salt Spring community.

While all of our guests agreed that local submissions on important issues is crucial, they also agreed that watching local discussions on social media devolve into personal attacks was hard. Leslie shared that it came as a bit of a shock to discover how much time is required for moderating everything posted on the Exchange. With an inflexible weekly deadline, Gail also shared her struggles getting the verifiable, issue-based content she needs from us week after week. The take away message from this conversation was that we have an important part to play in supporting our local media. Let’s take this responsibility/opportunity seriously by offering insightful issue analysis rather than personal attacks. 

When Leslie was approached by another community about creating its own Exchange, her most important question: “Does your community care enough to support local media over corporate media?” For many communities, the answer leads to more questions – but participants agreed that if you visit communities without local media, its absence can be felt. Luckily, Salt Spring has and continues to demonstrate that we do care enough.

Multiple community members acknowledged how lucky we are to have such strong local media options. While acknowledging this, we also recognized that corporate media outlets impact our lives. While there was concern about the huge television and print news organisations, much of our conversation focused on social media, like Facebook, that neither vets nor verifies the information posted. Colin reminded us of tv talk shows in the 1980s where the more fighting and hatred expressed, the higher the ratings. He observed this decades-old sensationalization of our media has devolved to the outrage now being expressed on social media.

Increasingly concerned over large corporate use and abuse of our personal information, Colin wondered out loud about creating a digital moat around Salt Spring filtering out large corporate-driven media and marketing. While the Exchange needs to survive financially, being a responsible local purveyor of information is of utmost importance. For this reason, the Exchange has become a Benefit Company (https://saltspringexchange.com/2024/09/02/the-salt-spring-exchange-is-now-a-bc-benefit-company-under-new-ownership/), promising to act responsibly as well as supporting local initiatives. While these opportunities for support are numerous, Colin and Leslie are especially interested in supporting serious discussions about housing, the environment, food security, and volunteerism. 

The strong sentiment of this ASK Salt Spring group was that all Salt Springers should recognize the incredible gift we have in our local, vetted, verified media. To demonstrate this support, we should use Facebook and other social media never or seldom, always with the recognition that we are trusting a large corporation that cares only about influencing, manipulating, and selling. 

There was brief mention of the recent Facebook rejection of all local media information. As a result of Bill C-18 (https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/online-news.html), designed to protect local media from use of its information by large media corporations, Facebook has responded by blocking all local information, including the Driftwood and the Exchange as well as our radio station. According to Damian on the CHiR.fm website: “We feel like an ant that’s been crushed by an elephant. We depend on the sale of the thousands of LPs and CDs that people on the island have donated, and it’s a huge blow not to be able to let the public know where we are through Salt Spring Facebook pages.”

When you add the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to the toolbox of corporate media, it can be concerning. Colin shared a recent conversation in which he and Leslie were musing about what their all time live music show would be. Not coincidently, soon after, there was an ad on their phone for a concert of their favorite band. It gave some of us shivers of discomfort to realize that our phones are monitoring us. . .always. 

But, while the fear of corporate media like Facebook appeared to be shared by participants at this ASK Salt Spring gathering, there was a recognition that AI applications like ChatBot (https://chat.chatbotapp.ai/landing/register?utm_source=GoogleAds&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=cpc&utm_id=21151825605&utm_term=160968040295&utm_content=702198499597) may soon become a part of many of our lives. The conclusion was to use it with intelligence. Colin related a story of his university son who presented ethical uses of AI to university faculty and administrators to help them prepare for this rapidly-evolving source of information. Can we use the powers offered by AI without succumbing to hidden corporate messages and manipulation? 

While many seemed to share the feeling that they had lost trust in corporate news sources, there was agreement that we are very lucky to have such strong and committed local news options with leaders who are collaborating on projects to make Salt Spring ever better. There was the also acknowledgement that face-to-face conversations about the local issues are critically important with a shout out for ASK Salt Spring’s offering of these weekly conversations. 

Our time too soon over, we thanked our hardworking, caring local media professionals for their constant search for truth, tenacity vetting their information, appreciation of our local issues-based contributions, and willingness to share their visions for a better Salt Spring with us. (Thank-you Leslie, Colin, Gail, and Damian!)