Victoria journalist Diane Dakers will be on campus on Feb. 10 to speak about her new book, CHEK Republic: A Revolution in Local Television. The book, which began as Dakers’s 2012 MJ thesis, follows the story of Vancouver Island’s CHEK TV. The broadcast outlet made history in 2009 when it became North America’s first employee-owned television station during the crash of its corporate owner, Canwest Global.

In describing the book, Dakers said, “When Canwest announced it was shutting CHEK down, I wondered how that was even possible. How could a national media conglomerate simply pull the plug on a local TV station, no questions asked? Where was Canada’s regulator in the process?”

In her talk, Dakers will share lessons from the “CHEK experiment” five years on and discuss CHEK’s approach to providing low-cost local TV. The event takes place Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 6 pm in the Reader’s Digest Centre.