7 ms·

Some years ago they had a large audience, me included, who got great value out of their investigative journalism. At some point they started pivoting into some

Some years ago they had a large audience, me included, who got great value out of their investigative journalism. At some point they started pivoting into some weird form of advocacy journalism and clickbait garbage, alienating their existing audience, and apparently failing to find a new one. Good riddance.

fredgrott 3y ago
What happen is that they took market money which means they no longer had to be hungry and do good and honest journalism.
throw_m239339 3y ago
They started edgy (Gavin McInnes was the co-founder), they became partisan. I'm no fan of a certain Youtuber, but he started at Vice News, and he claims that when the sex harassment lawsuits happened, Vice had to make themselves look "clean" for investors and so become more "aligned" with the US political left and became essentially yet another PAC like Vox media or Buzzfeed.
caseyross 3y ago
Isn't it more likely to be the case that no one was willing to pay for the investigative journalism? You see this everywhere. The clickbait is a funding source for the real work. Journalists almost never want to push garbage on the public --- they're usually forced to by management, either as an attempt at growth-at-all-costs or as a revenue source of last resort.
- gspencley 3y ago
  Given they are declaring bankruptcy, there seems to be a signal indicating the possibility that no one was willing to pay for the alternative either.
  - clemailacct1 3y ago
    This is so spot on of a rebuttal. Vice’s shift into what they’ve become was a top-down terrible choice from what they used to be.
    - motoxpro 3y ago
      The rebuttal to that is that neither worked. They wouldn’t have switched if the original style worked. They wouldn’t have gone bankrupt if the switch worked. They would have gone back to the original style of it worked before the switch.
      - gspencley 3y ago
        Yeah my comment wasn't actually intended as "rebuttal" so much as an observation that something is seriously broken in traditional news media. It is a business, and so it is reasonable to have to just accept that a certain amount of sensationalism, click-bait and other "metric-increasing" tactics will be omnipresent so long as "traditional news media" continues to exist in some form. I've read that this has always been the case anyway, and people complaining about it is as old as people complaining about taxes. But clearly the target audience is just not buying what they are selling these days, no matter what that is. I suspect that, in addition to the Internet putting serious competitive pressure on print media, social media is also playing a big factor in the demand for traditional news outlets. In current year, everyone is carrying a camera with them at all times and the ability to publish content instantly. When most people are so "connected", such that they can find out what is happening around them the instant it happens in a quick clip or headline, what use is there for long-form articles?
        motoxpro 3y ago
        I agree with all of that. I would just say that, the internet allows for more niche things in general. If you want more sensationalized articles, it’s got that, if you want more rational takes, it’s got that. I can get exactly the flavor I want and in that sense why would I watch something that by definition has to cater to everyone. Similar to music, why listen to the radio when I could listen to the exact music I want 24/7. Less a bug with news organizations and more a feature that the internet enabled. This same thing has played out in a dozen different industries for the same reason.
criddell 3y ago
> Some years ago they had a large audience Were the numbers good though? Was it sustainable?
- chmod775 3y ago
  Not long ago things were looking great: > 2012 revenue of $175 million, 2014(e) revenue of $500 million, 2016(e) revenue of $1 billion(!) > "[P]rofit margins targeted to widen to 50% of sales from 34% now" https://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2014/03/31/vice-media-ipo/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2014/03/31/...
  - criddell 3y ago
    I had to take a look and those estimates were wildly optimistic. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/06/inside-vice-media-shane-smith.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/06/inside-vice-media-sh... Near the end is this: > But the underlying driver of Vice’s success has always been the close connection between its editorial work and its work for brands. I’m not sure their great investigative journalism was ever self-sustaining.
    - jcrubino 3y ago
      Wars end and it must be difficult to convince Simon Ostrovsky and Ben Anderson to stay on or even captain their own ship in the fleet let alone get Morris to do something other than pharmacopia.
yawboakye 3y ago
this is the entire US media at the moment. and even some english versions of european newspapers. i follow the football league in spain a lot but don't speak spanish. i used to get great content from https://marca.com/en--i.e https://marca.com/en--i.e. english version of the same newspaper. recently they made a sharp turn into the garbage/clickbait-y end so that now i have to rely on browser translations of the original spanish at https://marca.com https://marca.com. sad what click/eyeball-based advertising has done to web-published journals.
booleandilemma 3y ago
The core problem is that people don't want to pay for news. You can see this right here on HN. Just submit a paywalled article and the top comment will be a link to the archive.org version.
- groestl 3y ago
  I want to pay for news. I just don't want to pay for every news platform there is on this world, searately, because some manager somewhere decides that this will push the brand (same applies for movies, songs, etc) (not to go against your argument, I'm just elaborating on it)
  - nequo 3y ago
    That’s how we used to pay for newspapers though. Cable companies use bundling instead and you get a lot of crap that you don’t need but they price discriminate you into.
    - alistairSH 3y ago
      Sure, but how many people subscribed to >2 papers? Growing up, the family had the Washington Post and Economist, plus the nightly news on one of the major broadcast stations. Some people might also get the WSJ. I can't think of anybody I knew who got more than that.
      - iamthirsty 3y ago
        I subscribe to >2 papers. Some people even go as far as purchasing a Bloomberg terminal to get the news – albeit financial – as soon as it hits the wire. The group who does pay for news, as I've alluded to, are people in the financial sector, or those who's knowledge of the news affects or is inherent to their job. Business people, basically. On a personal note, in high-school I competed on a team competition – Academic Decathlon – and my testing subject was Current Events. So I may be somewhat outside the norm. I subscribe to the Financial Times, the Economist, WSJ, Bloomberg, and more.
      - 3y ago
jasmer 3y ago
It was not quite journalism because they didn’t really adhere to standards though they did dig into issues msm is too lazy or narrow to cover and so I think they had a legit voice.
tyingq 3y ago
>had a large audience, me included I'm also disappointed at the drop in quality. Their reporting from war zones like Syria was really interesting and different.
bannedbybros 3y ago
[dead]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
okdood64 3y ago
I think they've been doing more than fine work recently. Look specifically at their VICE News page: https://www.youtube.com/@VICENews/videos https://www.youtube.com/@VICENews/videos
GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
I think you might be confusing "Vice" and "Vice News" the former did the off-beat stories and the latter was sending correspondents to war zones, etc.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  Both are the same organization. There isn't any real segmentation between Vice and Vice News like in Buzzfeed (have friends who have freelanced for Vice). That said, a LOT of Vice news itself is freelanced by reporters in the middle of their own projects such as documentaries, publishing projects, etc.

fredgrott 3y ago

What happen is that they took market money which means they no longer had to be hungry and do good and honest journalism.

throw_m239339 3y ago

They started edgy (Gavin McInnes was the co-founder), they became partisan. I'm no fan of a certain Youtuber, but he started at Vice News, and he claims that when the sex harassment lawsuits happened, Vice had to make themselves look "clean" for investors and so become more "aligned" with the US political left and became essentially yet another PAC like Vox media or Buzzfeed.

caseyross 3y ago

Isn't it more likely to be the case that no one was willing to pay for the investigative journalism? You see this everywhere. The clickbait is a funding source for the real work. Journalists almost never want to push garbage on the public --- they're usually forced to by management, either as an attempt at growth-at-all-costs or as a revenue source of last resort.

gspencley 3y ago
Given they are declaring bankruptcy, there seems to be a signal indicating the possibility that no one was willing to pay for the alternative either.
- clemailacct1 3y ago
  This is so spot on of a rebuttal. Vice’s shift into what they’ve become was a top-down terrible choice from what they used to be.
  - motoxpro 3y ago
    The rebuttal to that is that neither worked. They wouldn’t have switched if the original style worked. They wouldn’t have gone bankrupt if the switch worked. They would have gone back to the original style of it worked before the switch.
    - gspencley 3y ago
      Yeah my comment wasn't actually intended as "rebuttal" so much as an observation that something is seriously broken in traditional news media. It is a business, and so it is reasonable to have to just accept that a certain amount of sensationalism, click-bait and other "metric-increasing" tactics will be omnipresent so long as "traditional news media" continues to exist in some form. I've read that this has always been the case anyway, and people complaining about it is as old as people complaining about taxes. But clearly the target audience is just not buying what they are selling these days, no matter what that is. I suspect that, in addition to the Internet putting serious competitive pressure on print media, social media is also playing a big factor in the demand for traditional news outlets. In current year, everyone is carrying a camera with them at all times and the ability to publish content instantly. When most people are so "connected", such that they can find out what is happening around them the instant it happens in a quick clip or headline, what use is there for long-form articles?
      - motoxpro 3y ago
        I agree with all of that. I would just say that, the internet allows for more niche things in general. If you want more sensationalized articles, it’s got that, if you want more rational takes, it’s got that. I can get exactly the flavor I want and in that sense why would I watch something that by definition has to cater to everyone. Similar to music, why listen to the radio when I could listen to the exact music I want 24/7. Less a bug with news organizations and more a feature that the internet enabled. This same thing has played out in a dozen different industries for the same reason.

criddell 3y ago

> Some years ago they had a large audience Were the numbers good though? Was it sustainable?

chmod775 3y ago
Not long ago things were looking great: > 2012 revenue of $175 million, 2014(e) revenue of $500 million, 2016(e) revenue of $1 billion(!) > "[P]rofit margins targeted to widen to 50% of sales from 34% now" https://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2014/03/31/vice-media-ipo/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2014/03/31/...
- criddell 3y ago
  I had to take a look and those estimates were wildly optimistic. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/06/inside-vice-media-shane-smith.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/06/inside-vice-media-sh... Near the end is this: > But the underlying driver of Vice’s success has always been the close connection between its editorial work and its work for brands. I’m not sure their great investigative journalism was ever self-sustaining.
  - jcrubino 3y ago
    Wars end and it must be difficult to convince Simon Ostrovsky and Ben Anderson to stay on or even captain their own ship in the fleet let alone get Morris to do something other than pharmacopia.

yawboakye 3y ago

this is the entire US media at the moment. and even some english versions of european newspapers. i follow the football league in spain a lot but don't speak spanish. i used to get great content from https://marca.com/en--i.e https://marca.com/en--i.e. english version of the same newspaper. recently they made a sharp turn into the garbage/clickbait-y end so that now i have to rely on browser translations of the original spanish at https://marca.com https://marca.com. sad what click/eyeball-based advertising has done to web-published journals.

booleandilemma 3y ago

The core problem is that people don't want to pay for news. You can see this right here on HN. Just submit a paywalled article and the top comment will be a link to the archive.org version.

groestl 3y ago
I want to pay for news. I just don't want to pay for every news platform there is on this world, searately, because some manager somewhere decides that this will push the brand (same applies for movies, songs, etc) (not to go against your argument, I'm just elaborating on it)
- nequo 3y ago
  That’s how we used to pay for newspapers though. Cable companies use bundling instead and you get a lot of crap that you don’t need but they price discriminate you into.
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    Sure, but how many people subscribed to >2 papers? Growing up, the family had the Washington Post and Economist, plus the nightly news on one of the major broadcast stations. Some people might also get the WSJ. I can't think of anybody I knew who got more than that.
    - iamthirsty 3y ago
      I subscribe to >2 papers. Some people even go as far as purchasing a Bloomberg terminal to get the news – albeit financial – as soon as it hits the wire. The group who does pay for news, as I've alluded to, are people in the financial sector, or those who's knowledge of the news affects or is inherent to their job. Business people, basically. On a personal note, in high-school I competed on a team competition – Academic Decathlon – and my testing subject was Current Events. So I may be somewhat outside the norm. I subscribe to the Financial Times, the Economist, WSJ, Bloomberg, and more.
    - 3y ago

jasmer 3y ago

It was not quite journalism because they didn’t really adhere to standards though they did dig into issues msm is too lazy or narrow to cover and so I think they had a legit voice.

tyingq 3y ago

>had a large audience, me included I'm also disappointed at the drop in quality. Their reporting from war zones like Syria was really interesting and different.

bannedbybros 3y ago

[dead]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

okdood64 3y ago

I think they've been doing more than fine work recently. Look specifically at their VICE News page: https://www.youtube.com/@VICENews/videos https://www.youtube.com/@VICENews/videos

GaryNumanVevo 3y ago

I think you might be confusing "Vice" and "Vice News" the former did the off-beat stories and the latter was sending correspondents to war zones, etc.

alephnerd 3y ago
Both are the same organization. There isn't any real segmentation between Vice and Vice News like in Buzzfeed (have friends who have freelanced for Vice). That said, a LOT of Vice news itself is freelanced by reporters in the middle of their own projects such as documentaries, publishing projects, etc.