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> But editorial standards change when your aim is not to be an entertainment company, but a trusted source of news. This amazes me: what makes them think that

> But editorial standards change when your aim is not to be an entertainment company, but a trusted source of news. This amazes me: what makes them think that they aren't a trusted source of news for their audience? > With expansion comes a sense of responsibility,” he told me recently in one of Vice’s glass-walled conference rooms. “As time goes on I don’t think that being silly, being stupid, is cool anymore. When you look at the planet, at the state that it’s in, it demands attention. It demands scrutiny. And it demands a certain level of seriousness.” Could it be that it's exactly the lack of seriousness of Vice's reporting up to this point that has made people trust them? Reality isn't always serious, and when it is, sometimes the only way to deal with it is to laugh at it, or to admit that it's strange. In short, this looks like yet another company getting big and then changing everything that made them successful. It's not necessarily going to hurt their bottom line, but it's an example of why companies getting big is bad for consumers.

fennecfoxen 11y ago
> This amazes me: what makes them think that they aren't a trusted source of news for their audience? High-quality, prestigious yellow journalism. Remember the Maine!
- copsarebastards 11y ago
  "Yellow journalism" means it's sensationalized or exaggerated, but I think most of Vice's stuff wasn't; they simply reported on sensational topics, and people assumed they were exaggerated because the topics are seemingly larger-than-life to an audience unfamiliar with them. Of course, they weren't perfect, but when they did sensationalize or exaggerate, I think it was a bit more harmless than most news sources. Everyone is doing it to sell ad space, but Vice tended to sensationalize stories that were weird rather than stories that created fear or outrage--their sensationalism was less politicized. EDIT: To be clear, I'm talking about Vice a while back, not Vice now. The changes mentioned in the article are already apparent in some of what Vice is doing these days.
freewizard 11y ago
> it's an example of why companies getting big is bad for consumers. it's also in general what drives us building new things/companies.
litmus 11y ago
My thoughts exactly. The writing has gotten stale without adding real substance--with a few exceptions obviously. But in general they've sacrificed form without adding meaningful content. They had an issue on Somalia a while back where most of the pieces could have appeared on any mainstream magazine that gets extra brownie points for the symbolic act of dedicating an issue on an under-reported topic. It's like playboy, but instead of porn they have Do's and Don'ts and video game reviews, and the writing is shittier. I think I've enjoyed some of the fiction pieces they added in the past few years more than the journalism frankly. You can be silly and be authentic most of the time, and then once in a while when you say something about the truth, people will listen. I love that line in Ghostbusters: ""Let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area."[1] It stupid and silly, hell its Ghostbusters, but the scene is an authentic template of many idiotic and funny explanations you witness in random casual conversation, as well as being pretty much a template for all latter day Bill Murray scenes. McInnes' view on writing--"just write a letter to your brother but take out all the inside jokes"--has been almost completely abandoned in the magazine. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzaQjS1JstY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzaQjS1JstY EDIT: typo
joshuapants 11y ago
> This amazes me: what makes them think that they aren't a trusted source of news for their audience? They probably know that their audience trusts them as a source of news, but they also know that the wider perception of them is not as a trusted source.
- copsarebastards 11y ago
  So they're going to dump their audience to compete for the audience that every other news source is competing for?
pakled_engineer 11y ago
Vice news docs in the beginning I liked because they gave uncensored translations of locals which sometimes were hilarious even when the topic was supposed to be serious, and there wasn't dubbed translations muting the local language out like every other media does. Sadly now they've taken to playing menacing background music during stories like when they interviewed some drug addict in Afghanistan who claimed to be ex Taliban and did everything including slowing down his laugh so it sounded as evil as possible. It's bordering on propagandatainment lately. There was also a questionable story by Vice about the Nigerian military fighting militants recently and the supposedly embedded reporter made zero mention that the entire crew in the attacking helicopters they filmed in were not Nigerian. Hey why do the gunners and pilots have white arms? Are they mercenaries? British pilots? South African? Who knows Vice never bothered to tell us.
- DanBC 11y ago
  White people can be African. There are about 5m to 6m white Africans. There's probably not many white Nigerians - probably less than 10k. But white does not mean not African.

fennecfoxen 11y ago

> This amazes me: what makes them think that they aren't a trusted source of news for their audience? High-quality, prestigious yellow journalism. Remember the Maine!

copsarebastards 11y ago
"Yellow journalism" means it's sensationalized or exaggerated, but I think most of Vice's stuff wasn't; they simply reported on sensational topics, and people assumed they were exaggerated because the topics are seemingly larger-than-life to an audience unfamiliar with them. Of course, they weren't perfect, but when they did sensationalize or exaggerate, I think it was a bit more harmless than most news sources. Everyone is doing it to sell ad space, but Vice tended to sensationalize stories that were weird rather than stories that created fear or outrage--their sensationalism was less politicized. EDIT: To be clear, I'm talking about Vice a while back, not Vice now. The changes mentioned in the article are already apparent in some of what Vice is doing these days.

freewizard 11y ago

> it's an example of why companies getting big is bad for consumers. it's also in general what drives us building new things/companies.

litmus 11y ago

My thoughts exactly. The writing has gotten stale without adding real substance--with a few exceptions obviously. But in general they've sacrificed form without adding meaningful content. They had an issue on Somalia a while back where most of the pieces could have appeared on any mainstream magazine that gets extra brownie points for the symbolic act of dedicating an issue on an under-reported topic. It's like playboy, but instead of porn they have Do's and Don'ts and video game reviews, and the writing is shittier. I think I've enjoyed some of the fiction pieces they added in the past few years more than the journalism frankly. You can be silly and be authentic most of the time, and then once in a while when you say something about the truth, people will listen. I love that line in Ghostbusters: ""Let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area."[1] It stupid and silly, hell its Ghostbusters, but the scene is an authentic template of many idiotic and funny explanations you witness in random casual conversation, as well as being pretty much a template for all latter day Bill Murray scenes. McInnes' view on writing--"just write a letter to your brother but take out all the inside jokes"--has been almost completely abandoned in the magazine. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzaQjS1JstY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzaQjS1JstY EDIT: typo

joshuapants 11y ago

> This amazes me: what makes them think that they aren't a trusted source of news for their audience? They probably know that their audience trusts them as a source of news, but they also know that the wider perception of them is not as a trusted source.

copsarebastards 11y ago
So they're going to dump their audience to compete for the audience that every other news source is competing for?

pakled_engineer 11y ago

Vice news docs in the beginning I liked because they gave uncensored translations of locals which sometimes were hilarious even when the topic was supposed to be serious, and there wasn't dubbed translations muting the local language out like every other media does. Sadly now they've taken to playing menacing background music during stories like when they interviewed some drug addict in Afghanistan who claimed to be ex Taliban and did everything including slowing down his laugh so it sounded as evil as possible. It's bordering on propagandatainment lately. There was also a questionable story by Vice about the Nigerian military fighting militants recently and the supposedly embedded reporter made zero mention that the entire crew in the attacking helicopters they filmed in were not Nigerian. Hey why do the gunners and pilots have white arms? Are they mercenaries? British pilots? South African? Who knows Vice never bothered to tell us.

DanBC 11y ago
White people can be African. There are about 5m to 6m white Africans. There's probably not many white Nigerians - probably less than 10k. But white does not mean not African.