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> Vice News used to be great and essentially apolitical. One of the founders founded the proud boys. >They went to interesting, dangerous places and reported

> Vice News used to be great and essentially apolitical. One of the founders founded the proud boys. >They went to interesting, dangerous places and reported what they saw by showing you what they saw. They were rich nepo kids going into places and doing a ton of poverty porn. Seeing the inside of a favela on the eyes of a brooklyn kids whose dad makes pharma patents was edgy in 2000s but boy does it not hold up. > All new Vice productions are deeply and uniformly opinionated. Same as ever, nepo babies think they know everything. If you go back you see plenty of it in their early stuff too. You were just younger and noticed it less. > this later work received no significant attention and generated no revenue. By 2012 they had already completely sold out when they sold the mag to i-D and still where making massive numbers. They are being sold now for 225 million despite their bankruptcy. > There is political groupthink in reporting ruinous to the bottom line. Fox News is the most overt political entertainment network in the planet and also the most profitable. Seems like your theory is entirely at odds with reality and your rose tinted glasses of gonzo Vice is mostly ignoring the actual content of the magazine.

golergka 3y ago
> One of the founders founded the proud boys. That's ad hominem, not a counter argument about Vice's content. > They were rich nepo kids going into places and doing a ton of poverty porn. Seeing the inside of a favela on the eyes of a brooklyn kids whose dad makes pharma patents was edgy in 2000s but boy does it not hold up. Yes, so? This description is good journalism. You're just trying to come up with derogatory terms to describe it, while there's nothing wrong with any of that.
- sophacles 3y ago
  It's not ad hominem in the context of discussing bias to point out that a person who founded one biased organization also founded a political advocacy group (aka another by-definion biased organaization), it is describing a pattern.
  - LanceH 3y ago
    Taking one data point and extrapolating a quality onto the other isn't a "pattern".
    - sophacles 3y ago
      Bad extrapolation is not ad hominem either.
  - emaginniss 3y ago
    Robert Kennedy Jr is a crazy anti-vax nutjob, therefore, all of his work on environmentalism is invalid and the entire cause of environmentalism is suspect. Is that how this works?
    - sophacles 3y ago
      Of course not, don't be silly: 1. Saying a person founded a group is not an attack, insulting them is. 2. The relationship between a vaccine stance and an environmental stance is weak, if existent at all. The relationship of a political advocacy group and a media outlet is pretty strong - that is "i have something to say and the tools to say it loudly and widely" is a common pattern among those with the means (religions, wealthy folks, political fringe groups, etc). It's not ad-hominem to say "this new MLM Bernie Madoff is promoting is very similar to the ponzi scheme he was previously convicted of" either. 3. It's not ad-hominem to declare that a persons actions are consistent with their stated goals - it's not an attack, nor is it an attempt at discrediting (or supporting) their position. It is ad-hominem to say "unrelated opinions about vaccines discredit this environmental opinion".
- the_gastropod 3y ago
  That is not what ad hominem means. Responding to the claim that Vice used to be unbiased by pointing out the cofounder of Vice also happened to found an extremist right wing organization—some might call it a terrorist organization—is perfectly fair game.
  - Slava_Propanei 3y ago
    [dead]
- Arkhaine_kupo 3y ago
  > That's ad hominem Pointing out overt political activism by the founders is pretty important context when discussing the "apolitical" nature of their ventures. > Yes, so? Edgy != good. The journalistic value of interviewing a "cartel" member with 0 verifcation, sources or journalistic codes is not good journalism. It is just titilating porn for middle class people. The person being interviewed might just be a kid with a mask, an airsoft gun talking about how much heroin he sells and how many people he tortures. Or worse, they might actually be in a cartel and try to impress the kid with the camera and shoot someone to shock them. (Something close to this happened while they filmed cartel members doing coke at a bar in mexico). Absolutely no journalism happened that night. > while there's nothing wrong with any of that. Shitting all over the word journalism, ignoring lessons learned by countless of better, braver, more talented men and women and going for shock over reality is all pretty good reasons. I only used buzzwords because I think the naivete of rich kids pretending to be journalists being exploited for profit by a company founded by a wannabe neonazi is too obvious to have to spell out.
  - methodical 3y ago
    The bulk of your comment was just a strawman... Yes, interviewing a faceless "cartel" member with zero verification would be poor journalism, which isn't the same as bringing a camera into XYZ location and recording/describing the conditions, which classifies as journalism in the same way that war journalists who go into warzones and describe situations are journalists. I think ironically enough your personal feelings regarding the founders of Vice are coloring your perspective on their earlier work which meets the textbook definition of journalism.
MrFantastic 3y ago
The Proud Boys started as a joke by a former Punk Singer. Punks ideology was based on anti-racist and anti-sexist beliefs, They didn't realize that there was a real audience for their satire and the group was Co-opted by actual racists. A similar thing happened to the Tea Party which was anti-1%'res which is now controlled by their corporate donors. It's new name is the House Freedom Caucus and they want to default on US debt.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago
  [dead]
lost_tourist 3y ago
That's a lot of accusations without even a small blurb article of support? Fox news has always been a profitable disaster since it's earliest days.
cj 3y ago
I used to watch Vice News Tonight religiously and (at the time, at least) the quality on journalism was miles above CNN, Fox News, etc. The main thing I remember about it (which may still be true today) is it was the only daily TV source of relatively unbiased reporting that includes world issues and isn't 100% focused on reporting within the USA.

golergka 3y ago

> One of the founders founded the proud boys. That's ad hominem, not a counter argument about Vice's content. > They were rich nepo kids going into places and doing a ton of poverty porn. Seeing the inside of a favela on the eyes of a brooklyn kids whose dad makes pharma patents was edgy in 2000s but boy does it not hold up. Yes, so? This description is good journalism. You're just trying to come up with derogatory terms to describe it, while there's nothing wrong with any of that.

sophacles 3y ago
It's not ad hominem in the context of discussing bias to point out that a person who founded one biased organization also founded a political advocacy group (aka another by-definion biased organaization), it is describing a pattern.
- LanceH 3y ago
  Taking one data point and extrapolating a quality onto the other isn't a "pattern".
  - sophacles 3y ago
    Bad extrapolation is not ad hominem either.
- emaginniss 3y ago
  Robert Kennedy Jr is a crazy anti-vax nutjob, therefore, all of his work on environmentalism is invalid and the entire cause of environmentalism is suspect. Is that how this works?
  - sophacles 3y ago
    Of course not, don't be silly: 1. Saying a person founded a group is not an attack, insulting them is. 2. The relationship between a vaccine stance and an environmental stance is weak, if existent at all. The relationship of a political advocacy group and a media outlet is pretty strong - that is "i have something to say and the tools to say it loudly and widely" is a common pattern among those with the means (religions, wealthy folks, political fringe groups, etc). It's not ad-hominem to say "this new MLM Bernie Madoff is promoting is very similar to the ponzi scheme he was previously convicted of" either. 3. It's not ad-hominem to declare that a persons actions are consistent with their stated goals - it's not an attack, nor is it an attempt at discrediting (or supporting) their position. It is ad-hominem to say "unrelated opinions about vaccines discredit this environmental opinion".
the_gastropod 3y ago
That is not what ad hominem means. Responding to the claim that Vice used to be unbiased by pointing out the cofounder of Vice also happened to found an extremist right wing organization—some might call it a terrorist organization—is perfectly fair game.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago
  [dead]
Arkhaine_kupo 3y ago
> That's ad hominem Pointing out overt political activism by the founders is pretty important context when discussing the "apolitical" nature of their ventures. > Yes, so? Edgy != good. The journalistic value of interviewing a "cartel" member with 0 verifcation, sources or journalistic codes is not good journalism. It is just titilating porn for middle class people. The person being interviewed might just be a kid with a mask, an airsoft gun talking about how much heroin he sells and how many people he tortures. Or worse, they might actually be in a cartel and try to impress the kid with the camera and shoot someone to shock them. (Something close to this happened while they filmed cartel members doing coke at a bar in mexico). Absolutely no journalism happened that night. > while there's nothing wrong with any of that. Shitting all over the word journalism, ignoring lessons learned by countless of better, braver, more talented men and women and going for shock over reality is all pretty good reasons. I only used buzzwords because I think the naivete of rich kids pretending to be journalists being exploited for profit by a company founded by a wannabe neonazi is too obvious to have to spell out.
- methodical 3y ago
  The bulk of your comment was just a strawman... Yes, interviewing a faceless "cartel" member with zero verification would be poor journalism, which isn't the same as bringing a camera into XYZ location and recording/describing the conditions, which classifies as journalism in the same way that war journalists who go into warzones and describe situations are journalists. I think ironically enough your personal feelings regarding the founders of Vice are coloring your perspective on their earlier work which meets the textbook definition of journalism.

MrFantastic 3y ago

The Proud Boys started as a joke by a former Punk Singer. Punks ideology was based on anti-racist and anti-sexist beliefs, They didn't realize that there was a real audience for their satire and the group was Co-opted by actual racists. A similar thing happened to the Tea Party which was anti-1%'res which is now controlled by their corporate donors. It's new name is the House Freedom Caucus and they want to default on US debt.

Slava_Propanei 3y ago
[dead]

lost_tourist 3y ago

That's a lot of accusations without even a small blurb article of support? Fox news has always been a profitable disaster since it's earliest days.

cj 3y ago

I used to watch Vice News Tonight religiously and (at the time, at least) the quality on journalism was miles above CNN, Fox News, etc. The main thing I remember about it (which may still be true today) is it was the only daily TV source of relatively unbiased reporting that includes world issues and isn't 100% focused on reporting within the USA.