Vice Media organised $20M Saudi government festival

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/feb/01/vice-media-secretly-organised-20m-saudi-government-festival

by arkadiyt • 4 years ago

106 47 4 years ago

So, provovactive but still sincere question, are we still holding media and journalists to standards of integrity, or is this just the pretense we're all agreeing to as the set of rules where we know the game is to break them without conseqeuences?

It's unsatisfying to score points on Vice (or anyone really), but as a sample, I'd wonder if this larger question would benefit from being aired. Are we post-integrity?

causi• 4 years ago

People consider Vice Media journalists? These are the guys that tour North Korea and hunt pigs in Chernobyl. Taking money from Saudi royalty is one hundred percent on-brand for them. You watch Vice because they'll tell you about crazy stuff nobody else will, not because you need an unbiased news source.

cf141q5325• 4 years ago

Vice news has (or had?) some actual journalists. They hired Ben Anderson whos Afghanistan and Iraq reporting was really impressive. Especially "This is what winning looks like". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI If i recall correctly he made the footage when embedded via the BBC and (re)published it on vice? Still incredibly impressed of the footage he managed to shoot as an embedded journalists. I would guess in no small parts due to the integrity of Major Bill Steuber. Unfortunately that seems to have cost him his military career. He is now a security guard in Manhattan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3y8fqJt2cU&t=1360s

Afterwards Anderson mentioned the required style of reporting at Vice negatively (the camera focusing on his reactions) but he stayed with them for a while. Not sure if he is still associated with them.

edit: Fixed timestamp & He left vice last year https://twitter.com/benjohnanderson/status/14273137210435215...

adamrezich• 4 years ago

"journalism" is a weird word in 2022 because it can mean everything from "blogger" to "talking head teevee news presenter" and we're supposed to give respect to & assume integrity from everyone who self-identifies with this term. once "journalists" started "reporting on" what's happening on social media instead of doing shit out in the field, the term lost all credibility for me personally, and many others, but there's still this societal expectation that "journalism" is an inherently noble profession, regardless of what form it takes.

openknot2• 4 years ago

This reminds me of a paper, which I can't find but can summarize (a less-in-depth version of the argument is advanced in quotes by a journalism professor here [0]).

The argument, as I remember it, asserted that journalism is a semi-profession because journalists are expected to adhere to ethical principles widely practiced by reporters (e.g. fairness, accuracy, ethics). However, it's not a profession on the same level as physicians or lawyers because they don't require licenses or credentials (whether this is a good or bad aspect is up for debate, but it's a description of the way the field currently works).

Since the code of ethics aren't widely agreed upon (different unions of journalists and different newspaper publications have slightly different codes of ethics), there is a loss of professionalism in an academic sense (versus lawyers and physicians where the ethical codes are more standardized and may have legal or at least stronger moral binding). However, this does elevate journalism above a non-profession, as there are still ethical principles widely agreed with among credible journalists (e.g. if a source tells you information off-the-record, you protect their identity, even if threatened with imprisonment or personal harm).

[0] https://j-source.ca/can-journalism-be-a-profession/

vanattab• 4 years ago

are we still holding media and journalists to standards of integrity?

As far as I can tell only if the journalist/activist is a member of an opposing political ideology. If they are on "our side" we tolerate almost anything because you know the other side is nazis or communists.

droopyEyelids• 4 years ago

To me it feels like the opposite. They're expected to be team players.

An example were David Sirota's International Business Times articles Clinton[1] and Trump[2].

While head of the state department (which runs weapons deals), Clinton approved arms deals to controversial countries after they donated to the Clinton Foundation. This reporting was widely attacked online, often by other journalists. The article was very detailed and well documented.

Later he wrote another equally detailed article about how Trump ripped off investors through chicanery and the article was widely applauded by the same audience.

It was the same journalist doing the same level of investigation with the same rigor, treated completely differently by the same audience. In both cases it seems like the popular reception was not based on facts at all, in either direction! The reaction was largely based on which 'team' it supported.

1- https://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapon...

2- https://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/how-donald-trump-u...

sofixa2• 4 years ago

the same audience

Care to provide examples of "same audience", aka same people and organisations criticising one and applauding the other? I can easily see how some extremely biased "entertainment news" talk show hosts might do it, but I'm doubtful of actual journalist doing that.

m0ngr31• 4 years ago

Are we post-integrity?

We have been for a long time

Jenk• 4 years ago

are we still holding media and journalists to standards of integrity

Were we ever? What do you mean by "holding"? How does one hold any given media outlet or journalist to any standard?

dundarious2• 4 years ago

Very little reporting connected to foreign policy/natsec has integrity. The Washington Post recently ran the following obituary, emphasis mine. https://archive.md/20220201161018/https://www.washingtonpost...

Gen. Singlaub started the U.S. Council for World Freedom, an affiliate of the World Anti-Communist League. Later, as president of the international organization, he made what the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith called “substantial progress” in purging the group of neo-Nazis, antisemites and Latin American death-squad leaders.
...
In the early 1980s, as Congress began curtailing U.S. funding of efforts to overthrow leftist regimes in Nicaragua and elsewhere, Gen. Singlaub and his organizations remained an important conduit of materiel and financial assistance, reportedly with the help of deep-pocketed conservatives and foreign governments.
He was often compared to Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North and other major figures in the Reagan administration’s Iran-contra affair. North was among the national security officials who had authorized illegal arms sales to Iran to win the release of U.S. hostages in the Middle East and used some of the profits to support right-wing Nicaraguan rebels known as the contras.

The same man being applauded for purging death squad leaders from an organization and for funding death squad leaders.

openknot2• 4 years ago

The point of an independently-written newspaper obituary isn't hagiography (or endorsement of everything the notable person did). There is a slant to avoid speaking too ill of the dead, but typically obituary writers do not shy away from mentioning controversial aspects of the subject's life.

The writer isn't celebrating that he funded the contras, but is instead reporting how he was perceived by the American political class, and also mention key controversies he was involved with. The mention of his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair is an example of responsible reporting; in contrast, an irresponsible writer would have omitted the topic, and you would have never read it.

dfxm12• 4 years ago

What does it mean to hold media and journalists to standards of integrity? Does it mean that the people who care about such things will no longer consume Vice Media's products? That employees will leave the company? If that's the case, you certainly can't judge who is holding who to what right as this is being made public.

Are we post-integrity?

I would argue when it comes to corporate decision making, making money has always come first ahead of integrity, and it's a little naive to consider this the straw that breaks the camel's back.

323• 4 years ago

Just like Justin Bieber sang there, but is very woke and talks a lot about oppression while in US.

Or like the athletes which talk "courageously" about rampant islamophobia in their Western countries, while being signed for multi-million ad contracts for "bravely speaking truth to power", but which are mum while at the Beijing Olympics about the actual genocide against Muslims happening in China.

8f2ab37a-ed6c2• 4 years ago

Check out https://www.vivekramaswamy.com/wokeinc if you want to read more about the corporate social justice grift. I'm half-way through it and so far it's been a good read.

smashah• 4 years ago

Would've been nice if they spent as much money/effort/marketing in organising housing and compensation for half of South Jeddah that have just had their homes demolished.

Traster• 4 years ago

I'm not entirely sure what people are expecting from Vice here? A permanent embargo against Saudi Arabia? Enforced not by any nation states, but simply Vice Media. What's the standard that we're expecting them to adhere to here?

jklinger410• 4 years ago

Just three years after Vice publicly announced that it was pausing all work in Saudi Arabia due to the fallout from the state-ordered murder of dissident Jamal Khashoggi

Here, read the fucking article

quinnjh• 4 years ago

journalists bending to the will of a regime willing to kill them

Yes champ, we read the article

oh_sigh• 4 years ago

If you were a software developer, and there was a company who famously hunted down and murdered one of their software developers who quit - how long would you boycott that company for before deciding to go work for them?

carabiner• 4 years ago

I might do a year or two.

nintendo1889• 4 years ago

interesting how all media leans towards psuedo-liberalism, closeted racism, and anticulturism. And in the process, they cancel and defund themselves.

jamal-kumar• 4 years ago

Anyone remember when vice was still a magazine and it was used by gavin mcinnes to spout off articles like 'why being a conservative is cool' and making fun of minorities in the 'dos and donts'?

Vice has always been kind of this level of head-up-ass fake.

pessimizer3• 4 years ago

Vice's value proposition was extraordinarily cheap labor straight out of university due to its authentically "cool" branding. That's over, so they've just got to be Ozy now, but with a head start. Not quite over, I guess, because they're still cool in Saudi Arabia, or other underdeveloped countries with a wealthy elite whose children idolize Western things and can't wait to go to university abroad.

FooBarBizBazz2• 4 years ago

I love this paragraph:

The event promised to bring together the best of eastern culture (it took place among ancient carvings at the world heritage site of Al-’Ula on a historic trade route) with the best of western culture (it featured a performance from the dance duo Chainsmokers).

This is like Ghandi's reply:

"What do you think of Western Civilization?"

"It would be a very good idea."

hobomatic• 4 years ago

To be fair, you could also look at this as eastern culture being a bunch of exhibits in a museum, and western culture being an active process and also the organizing principle of the exchange taking place at all.

FooBarBizBazz2• 4 years ago

1. Too late to edit, so let me just correct my typo here: It's spelled "Gandhi".

2. Also, he's kind of like Mark Twain or Albert Einstein in that lots of quotes are attributed to him that he might not have actually said, and this might be one of them:

https://www.reddit.com/r/quotes/comments/1lbplg/gandhi_was_a...

z3c04• 4 years ago

I find the oh-so-witty replies of "I didn't know Vice was journalism nyuknyuknyuk" to be about as much of a distraction from the issue as when cable news stations retort that they're "entertainment, not news" when in the hot seat for a false claim.

Say what you will of the quality of their journalism, but at the end of the day, a journalistic organization is openly courting a regime that lured a journalist to his death under false pretenses, and then hacked his body into pieces, cooked the pieces of his body in a firepit, and forced his family to attend kangaroo court to witness pawns being scapegoated for Mohammed bin Salman.

Vice, US legislators, and most importantly, Mohammed bin Salman himself need to realize that we're not going to forget the despicable and disgusting human-being that Mohammed bin Salman is, and that any institutions that deal with him are guilty by association.

mistrial9• 4 years ago

the deserts are soaked in blood; this one killing is a political statement, and display of skill and cruelty by the perpetrators to scare others. The armchair rage is literally laughable by people who do and practice these things, as a way of life.

z3c04• 4 years ago

The punchline emerges from the complacent who will allow it to happen, while patting themselves on the back for how "pragmatic" they are - not from the "armchair outrage".

pessimizer3• 4 years ago

need to realize that we're not going to forget

But we definitely are, or rather clearly already have, so I'm not sure what repeating declarations like this does other than "virtue signal." If you work for a company that takes Saudi money, are you ready to quit, even knowing that no one will care?

8f2ab37a-ed6c2• 4 years ago

It's been a painful realization for those of us who grew up idealistic, taught in school that we, "the good guys", would rise up and together fight injustice, inequities and human right violations together the way "we" have in WW2.

Turns out that genocides, massacres, concentration camps, slavery and co are something that the West will gladly overlook because ultimately everybody's got a mortgage to pay, and the tedious moral grandstanding is nothing but empty PR. Nobody gives a shit, you just can't say that out loud. You need to make sure to Tweet your support for the right cause, and then go back to climbing your local power ladder of choice 30 seconds after hitting post.

I realize this sounds cynical, but I don't think there's much evidence to support a more optimistic outlook, at least as far as geopolitics go.

ghostbrainalpha• 4 years ago

Funny that you mention "virtue signaling" because the name of the Vice sub company that organizes parties is "Virtue".

z3c04• 4 years ago

Yes, I would quit my job if they were taking Saudi money. My job prospects are not dire enough that I have to compromise my personal ethics.

Do you only hold beliefs that you think people will care about? Are your principles founded on whether or not stating them will be perceived as "virtue signaling"?

908B64B1972• 4 years ago

It's par for the course coming from Vice. Their founder, Gavin McInnes[0] is the founder of the Proud Boys far right group.

Fair bit of warning, some quotes from his Wikipedia page are disturbing, to say the least. Keep in mind that he probably still has shares in Vice so watching their content lines up his pockets.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_McInnes

ersii2• 4 years ago

Gavin McInnes has no shares in Vice Media and he's been out of Vice for a long time, at least since 2008.

908B64B1972• 4 years ago

Not working there doesn't mean he doesn't have shares in the business.

kornhole• 4 years ago

Journalists need to be everwhere regardless of the political situation.

The Guardian's competitor also has operations in the US which supplies the Saudis weapons in exchange for oil denominated in USD. The US jails journalists such as Assange. So let's not be hypocritical.

vmception• 4 years ago

Eh.

The Western business model is espousing a stance separable from genuine outrage towards a particular belief. It works. Everyone that matters gets that.

The faux outrage here is only because Vice publicly espoused a stance, so its an article hoping for hypocrisy to be news. Vice didn't have business there for 3 years after they made that stance, did they ever say it would be permanent? It is an easy standard to rationalize compliance with.

The Guardian asked for a comment and actually got it! Vice was available for comment! Vice didn't even know what the issue was and just responded with accuracy "We opened a commercial and creative office in Riyadh earlier this year", lol.

The article could just as easily be fishing for controversy with the Chainsmokers for performing "in a regime that commits human rights abuses". A swing and a miss, Guardian!

jollybean• 4 years ago

Vice started by anti-establishment punkish idea, as way to make noise and money.

It's a bald-faced hustle and always has been.

kelvin0• 4 years ago

Vice is not doing this in a vacuum, 'regular' people are supporting their content. It's our responsibility to be mindful of what we watch and support. Don't feed the monster.

anm89• 4 years ago

The US government has absolutely zero qualms with dealing with the Saudi government.

Why would we expect private companies to be more strict than them?

Vice Media organised $20M Saudi government festival

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