Why Support Independent Media? Ask a Tyee Builder

It's no secret that Tyee Builders help this news site dig deeper, further, and stronger.

Every month, over 1,000 readers make contributions as small as $3 to support our team of award-winning reporters and commentators into 2016 and beyond.

Vivian Walker, a development assistant for the Vancouver Public Library Foundation, is one of those monthly sustainers. The native of Chilliwack, B.C. knows and loves British Columbia's coast and appreciates the West Coast perspective The Tyee brings to the national conversation.

As The Tyee wraps the second week of a campaign to earn 600 new monthly Builders, we decided to get to know one of our long-time contributors. Ready to join? Become a Tyee Builder today. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Tyee: What do you love about living on the West Coast?

Vivian Walker: You know when people say, ''If you could live at any time, in any place,'' as an icebreaker? I always say, ''Haida Gwaii 500 years ago.'' I have a very strong connection to the West Coast. My family's lived here since the 1860s. We have a big family farm that's on the edge of the largest salmon spawning stream in the Lower Mainland.

I don't know how to say this without sounding sappy, but I hurt when the salmon population is down. I just look at it and go, "Oh my God.'' Last week there was a huge washout because of the rain, so we know that a lot of the salmon beds have been washed away. It means in four years there's going to be very few salmon coming up. When stuff like that happens, I can really feel it.

Are there any writers or stories that keep you coming back to The Tyee?

Andrew Nikiforuk did an excellent job during the election of bringing issues to light. Generally speaking, I like that The Tyee shows local issues in a broader context. For example, in the recent Stiglitz article, homelessness in Vancouver isn't presented just in the light of an economic issue, hands wrung over foreign ownership, but as a social injustice. Last week, I forwarded several people the article about debunking myths over refugees. I liked that each myth was debunked by a different expert.

Why do you think independent media matters?

One word: discernment. Literacy means more than the ability to read, it means uncovering the point of view -- and teaching discernment is difficult. We used to get our news from two or maybe three sources: a trusted newspaper, maybe the radio, and one or two TV channels. We knew Walter Cronkite or Lloyd Robertson could be trusted. Now there are dozens of conventional news outlets, thousands if you count Internet story manufacturers. Independence means not worrying about what your advertisers will think. For the reader, it means not having to wonder whether advertisers or ownership forced a view.

What moved you from being a reader to being a Tyee Builder?

Giving monthly makes you feel automatically closer to a cause, so I think that's why I decided to give. Obviously if this was something you could provide for free, it would be great, but I know it costs money to do things well.

And since you started giving monthly, do you feel closer to the work The Tyee does?

I do and I make sure to read. I don't read all the stories -- I don't have the time -- but I will read the stories and go, ''Okay, this is what's important right now,'' and then click on whatever I have time for.

Thanks to readers like Vivian for their support. Ready to join? Become a Tyee Builder today.