Vice, Decayed Digital Colossus, Files for Bankruptcy

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/business/media/vice-bankruptcy.html

by mikhael • 3 years ago

285 219 3 years ago

nytimes.com

samspenc• 3 years ago

A group of creditors could buy Vice for $225 million.

So I guess the $400M acquisition bids that were reported didn't go through?

guiriduro• 3 years ago

I guess. Isn't it usually the case that if a company has sufficient tangible and intangible value and competition between interested bidders, that it gets bought normally; but if its value is substantially less than the total of its assets, debts, equity etc., then the few bidders will wait until a bankruptcy process eliminates a substantial part of the former debt and all the equity to leave a saleable core business, which can only happen in a bankruptcy proceeding anyway. Something tells me that post-ZIRP we're going to see that happen a lot.

bertman• 3 years ago

Previous story from 2 weeks ago, 133 comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35780517

LeoPanthera• 3 years ago

That was speculation. This happened today.

lethologica• 3 years ago

Shame. Vice was always my go to whenever I wanted a peek into a bizarre and unique corner of the world.

lionkor• 3 years ago

Maybe 5-10 years ago - now they mostly produce content similar to hundreds of other channels (IMO)

medion• 3 years ago

What other channels? Curious because I liked their zany micro documentaries and haven’t seen any similar which are released with any consistency.

soco2• 3 years ago

And this is exactly why a sizeable chunk of the world - even here on HN - is cheering their demise. Being different is definitely not generally acceptable.

throw_pm23• 3 years ago

What do you mean, at this point there are 10+ comments here saying the exact opposite: that their demise is due to them becoming less edgy and more bland, more like everyone else.

neurobama• 3 years ago

This YouTuber scratches that itch for me: https://www.youtube.com/@IndigoTraveller

65• 3 years ago

I've found Kurt Caz and Bald and Bankrupt go a lot deeper than Indigo Traveller.

One of my favorite recent videos from Kurt Caz is where he travels on the world's most dangerous road in Bolivia with Kevin the llama.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWGCSct5ONo

rorads• 3 years ago

Good retrospective on the inflection point for this cohort of digital media in the generally excellent Odd Lots podcast recently (Search “End of an Era for Digital Media).

Their conclusion on Vice was that it was never in the same league as BuzzFeed or similar in terms of traffic, but had one of the most pure and influential brands in the space.

coolandsmartrr2• 3 years ago

Vice and Buzzfeed really benefited from their social media strategy back when Facebook newsfeed began to promote more news articles. They were often featured together as the rising stars of digital media.

[Vice] had one of the most pure and influential brands in the space

I also remember the Intel Vice campaign. Shows that Vice had such a strong appeal that Intel really wanted to reach out to their younger demographics back then.

As many have pointed out, I haven't seen their articles or videos going viral recently. When Shane Smith left, it seems that the voice of counterculture and rebellion disappeared from the editorial leadership.

andybak4• 3 years ago

voice of counterculture
Shane Smith is a Canadian journalist and media executive and former billionaire.

I can't be the only person who finds the application of the term "counterculture" here rather a debasement of the concept.

paulpauper• 3 years ago

when other companies go bankrupt they go away for good, like Washington Mutual; when media companies go bankrupt they just change hands but still exist, like Newsweek.

sokoloff• 3 years ago

Plenty of other companies continue after bankruptcy restructuring as well. American Airlines, General Motors, and Marvel Entertainment all went through bankruptcy in their past.

CameronNemo2• 3 years ago

Yeah I think finance might be the exception more than the rule. If you're gm people might say "oh they make good cars but didn't get the finances right, so they had some trouble". The brand isn't hurt. But if your main product is financial, if your brand value is directly dependent on the financial security people feel about it, bankruptcy is a major blow to the brand.

fsckboy• 3 years ago

Vice had one of my favorite pieces of internet content ever, maybe this is a business lesson about "stick to the knitting" or something... "stick to the pointy Mexican boots"

http://web.archive.org/web/20230128213354/https://www.vice.c...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veQkt4tS0Tc

epolanski2• 3 years ago

Not only that, but Vice produced some of the highest quality, and only "mildly western-biased" reporting we have seen from world events.

See the 100+ dispatches from Ukraine 2014 mostly by Kamil Ostrovsky.[1]

But with time the amount of content by Vice literally exploded in magnitudes, and so did the quality of content and journalism.

Don't get me wrong, Vice still produced many other interesting contents, but eventually it has been so watered down by so many types of content that finding relevant or quality journalism became very difficult.

I wish they stuck with their initial spirit of focusing on quality reporting and content from around the world (NK, Ukraine, Africa etc), they would've built a terrific journalistic niche for themselves. A niche that I can't find anyone to be able to fill.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNKsLlK52ss

lynx23• 3 years ago

highest quality, sure... You probably don't mean things like this, right

https://www.vice.com/en/article/mgbx9q/how-to-make-breakfast...

Appears catering only to millenials wasn't the best idea.

dgroshev• 3 years ago

Slight correction: Simon Ostrovsky

Fwiw he seems to be not very impressed with Vice's management https://twitter.com/SimonOstrovsky/status/165319938725684019...

Toutouxc2• 3 years ago

Simon Ostrovsky :) And yes, Russian Roulette is amazing.

user_named8• 3 years ago

Their original content was Dos and Donts. You think that was quality? You don't know what Vice is.

emptysongglass• 3 years ago

Eddie Huang did a street food series with them that was also fantastic called Huang's World. I'm pretty sure it used to be called something else. What I liked about Vice was it all felt very unpolished. Huang, nonplussed, hangs with famous pornstar Jada Stevens while she's doing a shoot on the Bang Bus. That behind the scenes vibe dominated Vice video for a long time extending to their war coverage.

unixhero• 3 years ago

That was prime VICE

nocsi• 3 years ago

Funny because before Disney, akwafina was just hanging around with Eddie Huang on vice. Now she’s in all sorts of Disney stuff. I guess getting in bed w/ disney means you’ll die and disney will pick the morsels it likes

samwillis• 3 years ago

Publications are the Journalists that work there, and the culture that they create. If this is the end of Vice as a platform, it's not the end of that culture or the careers of the people that built it. Those journalists will take that culture of investigative, deep and sometimes immersive (gonzo?) journalism elsewhere.

Here in the UK we saw it with Buzzfeed News UK, when is was shut down in 2020 the journalists dispersed into other news organisations, some that they had worked with before (they had collaborated with C4 and BBC News on investigations), and have continued their important investigative work. I believe we will see the same with both Vice and Buzzfeed News (US).

Some will cheer its downfall, but there is an important place for all styles of journalism from all political leanings.

Dma54rhs• 3 years ago

They stopped the investigational side a long time ago, it's safe to assume the people involved already moved along and took their culture elsewhere.

I'm sure tabloids and yellow rags are always looking for cheap writers, plenty of them still exist.

mixermachine• 3 years ago

I absolutely loved the deep investigation side of vice. They lost me at the 10th iteration of "We smoked weed of of X" and some other low effort content about 4 or 5 years ago.

ajmurmann2• 3 years ago

"Those journalists will take that culture of investigative, deep and sometimes immersive (gonzo?) journalism elsewhere."

I hope you are correct. I do worry though if this might require funding and general corporate buy-in these journalists might not get elsewhere. I also worry about their arguments carrying less weight in other organizations because "we did this at Vice" is now tainted. If Vice had been a massive success their suggestions would have gotten extra weight instead of now causing caution.

lloydatkinson2• 3 years ago

Maybe the journalists should learn to code.

local_crmdgeon3• 3 years ago

These days they would do better learning to weld or frack.

lloydatkinson2• 3 years ago

I'm referencing the journalists and their "lEaRn tO CoDe" they tried pushing for a while when people were losing jobs, and now they themselves are being made redundant. https://www.theringer.com/tech/2019/1/29/18201695/learn-to-c...

neom• 3 years ago

Vice should have focused on their longer form doc content, they produced some really interesting stuff. Here are a few examples:

Golf, Booze & Guns: Inside Boomer Paradise -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp0nqJ1yrrg

Inside the Wellness Festival for Millionaires -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BbNvim11fI

Scams, Zealots, and Jet Skis: Life Inside the Crypto Scene -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9hXfBo8Abo

The Untouchable Chaebols of South Korea -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jFZge6V_is

"Be A Man”: Modernists and Traditionalists Debate Masculinity -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nE3EQEBzc0

Mexico's Most Wanted Drug Kingpin -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RZoGOc3VCs

Tantra Island: The Search for Sexual Paradise -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UsWj15AFRs

Hamiltons Pharmacopeia -- https://www.vicetv.com/en_us/show/hamiltons-pharmacopeia

coldtea• 3 years ago

They should, but perhaps that way they'd have filed for bunkruptcy sooner

pell• 3 years ago

These are interesting but in the current media industry it's hard to finance those without your listicles, clickbait-inducing opinion pieces, etc.

gHA5• 3 years ago

The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRuSS0iiFyo&

user_named8• 3 years ago

What do you mean should. If they did they wouldn't have existed to begin with. These things were always a minority of their content and it could never have been any other way.

HDThoreaun• 3 years ago

There’s no money in long form. It only works as a hook to get people to watch more profitable content.

Kosirich2• 3 years ago

Does anyone care to explain why on earth they don't have the "donate" button underneath their Youtube videos considering the number people who (still) appreciate the quality of their reporting on certain topics? Is it because they get demonetized?

dageshi• 3 years ago

I would guess because it simply wouldn't make a difference to their bottom line.

jsemrau• 3 years ago

Zero will always be Zero. But their demise is not only a problem of 1 Billion in liabilities but also of not finding new revenue streams.

prepend6• 3 years ago

Probably because they are a for profit corporation, not a charity. So the same reason why there’s not a tip jar in your neurosurgeon’s office and no donate button on AP videos.

Kosirich2• 3 years ago

Neurosurgeon doesn't give his/hers content for free, Vice does. I would like to offer my token of appreciation through one or multiple "tips" when I encounter a FREE video I really liked, same way I do to some other content creators.

nailer• 3 years ago

https://archive.is/IRRsX

irthomasthomas• 3 years ago

Did Vice kill itself, or was it murdered? I haven't paid a lot of attention, but it seems like Vice's content started going down hill right after they got into bed with Disney and Murdoch.

Disney... and Vice... Welcome to 2015!

I suppose the YouTube adpocalypse followed shortly after, too, demonetising political content. So, a perfect storm. No more money from political content, suddenly, and now your biggest shareholders, Disney and Murdoch, demand change to keep up. Shame that.

the-printer5• 3 years ago

Do you think there are any good cultural retrospects that cover the mid-2010s?

thr-nrg4• 3 years ago

No, the people who write them lost and are still upset about it.

hindsightbias• 3 years ago

Wait until the 40's for wikipedia's coverage. You won't recognize any of it.

sundvor4• 3 years ago

There's a rhyme that ends with "go broke"... I have seen a number of rather toxic Vice articles in the past few years, I wonder how profitable that turned out to be? I have a vague memory of them being edgy and interesting, but that's a long time ago.

Still, I'm sure I only saw fragments of their total body of work so it might be a skewed perception. My sympathies for those affected, these are tough times we are entering.

arp242• 3 years ago

I don't want to name any specific examples to avoid derailing this discussion, but I've seen a few articles that were so bewilderingly incorrect that it almost seemed like the author somehow didn't have a good grasp of the English language or something. There weren't a huge number of them, but there were a few.

The thing then is: should I then trust other articles? I don't mind if publications have a political bent, either to the left or right, or if some opinion piece has some pretty far-out ridiculous views on something or the other (within limits). But journalistic pieces and even opinion pieces should get basic facts right and they shouldn't blatantly misquote people. I don't want to research and verify everything in-depth, so there needs to be some trust relationship between a publisher and the reader.

Every publication makes mistakes. It happens. But at some point the mistakes become severe enough that the trust starts to disappear. Misleading outrage drives attention, clicks, and views in the short term, but the long-term effects may be quite destructive if you're not careful.

phpisthebest4• 3 years ago

Alot of media companies changed their standards and ethics in 2016 when the "wrong person" won an election they determined it was their job to ensure that "never happens again"

Melatonic4• 3 years ago

Disney and Vice definitely do not belong in the same bed. Unless maybe it was a funny cartoon of Mickey Mouse doing something salacious

AltruisticGapHN• 3 years ago

Never really liked Vice. Something about the way it is filmed, making reality more "dramatic". Even though it seemed on average good quality reporting.

lawgimenez2• 3 years ago

This is one of their best videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O16JP0YRKv4

They managed to embed with our elite LRR special forces (our only tier 1 unit) which was very secretive and maybe the only time anyone will see them in action.

shp0ngle• 3 years ago

All of those crazy videos are always from Isobel Yeung. I saw her travel to Xinjiang, Ukraine, Taliban's Afghanistan, Syria before and after Assad...

lawgimenez2• 3 years ago

Their research team is crazy good. Even our local journalists can't get a hold of our special forces.

the-printer5• 3 years ago

Vice to me was always just “high quality” news for people who read Pitchfork and the Fader and listened to Danny Brown and Ariel Pink.

In hindsight its “good content” of the war and drugs sort doesn’t feel too far off from the original angle of low-brow edginess that I feel like evolved and predated things like the “dirtbag left” and “El chapo traphouse” with less of a political bend.

I’m sort of confused as to what carried it into being heralded as a “digital colossus”, whose decline is described as part of the “end of an era” next to Buzzfeed News. Granted, once my own “New York nights at 21 edgy” phase tapered off around 2015-2016, I stopped regularly paying attention to it. At least Buzzfeed News had the accolades to justify its merit.

I suspect that around 2015-2016, right around the time when Supreme got sold to VF Corporation and Kanye and Kim Kardashian were in their prime, and Trump first stopped on (or off?) that escalator…there was a “vibe shift”…and whatever underlying cultural tones that everything that I’m describing can be categorized under sort of seemed “marketable”? But after Trump was elected, the vibe shifted again hard, and I guess Vice couldn’t keep up. Their target demographic is aging and the generation who follows them probably doesn’t have the stomach to tolerate their lack of taste and can probably figure out the “war and drugs” stuff on their own.

I don’t know. So much of this calls to forlorn days and I don’t expect much of the HN crowd to feel where I’m coming from.

If you know you know.

JansjoFromIkea• 3 years ago

I think some of that vibe shift was happening anyway and the Trump presidency just pushed it into overdrive as the numbers were all pointing towards easy gains from doing that (similar to CNN's high ratings throughout his presidency).

Pitchfork following the 2015 Conde Nast acquisition was the actual point where it drifted off imo into being wildly predictable with what it would champion.

Several others (most notably for me the avclub) had had several years of struggles then a very abrupt and marked decline in content with Univision acquisitions circa 2015/2016; eventually blurring into a uniform kind of sludge that seemed to intentionally blur the lines between several once disparate audiences. Meanwhile attempts to create new outlets for the content that had been ditched tended to commercially flop (e.g. the Dissolve)

Relatively speaking Vice was a lot better than most of these outlets in that it would still occasionally have some good content, but I guess this was largely due to the value of its brand ensuring it weathered that wave of acquisitions.

the-printer5• 3 years ago

Okay, so I'm not tripping. This is just the first time I've had to think critically about the mid-2010s awkward bend that I think you describe well, "a uniform kind of sludge that seemed to intentionally blur the lines between several once disparate audiences." At the time, I never paid much attention to how stiff the competition was during this period and how much money was being shoveled into the media outlets in such a weird market.

Now I'm reminded of an associate who was afforded a job opportunity at Vice that was basically an invitation to shill junk food on Twitter. And Verizon owning Complex Magazine (which is now apparently owned by BuzzFeed...)

What an odd time. No wonder it fell apart.

lvl1023• 3 years ago

Vice and HBO had some good contents in early days. They reported on stuff mass media _failed_ to report on especially following the GFC when America was going through some tough times.

The most memorable was David Choe reporting on scrap metal scavenging in rust belt cities. That one, for some reason, hit me really hard.

s_dev3• 3 years ago

I'm not sure why you think HBO has gone downhill -- I wouldn't compare vice and HBO. One was supposed to be a news organization the other entertainment.

HBO is still banging out great TV shows. Last of Us is the most recent that comes to mind.

lvl1023• 3 years ago

Just to clarify, Vice was on HBO.

GlacierFox• 3 years ago

I used to love vice. They had some of the most engaging content covering things I'd never see. But then it all started to unravel when the platform mostly turned into cringey hipster New Yorkers telling me about their preferred way to consume weed 10 times a day.

trendoid2• 3 years ago

yeah, if you think this is what they have been doing for the past few years, then you haven't really bothered to check out their work. They have been consistently doing some amazing international reporting that none of the mainstream media channels were/are interested in.

prepend6• 3 years ago

It’s not the only thing, but it’s the mostly thing.

Looking at their front page right now, over half the articles are buzzfeed-quality rubbish:

-“America Has Decided That Homeless People Aren't People”

-“5 Experts Tell us What They Think a Healthy Relationship Looks Like”

-“This Week's Coolest Drops, From Hoka to 'Seinfeld' x Percival”

-“Russia Wants to Build a MAGA Colony for US Conservatives, Lawyer Claims”

-“THIS WEEK ONLINE – Who's Afraid of the Proletariat?” -“I Went to a BDSM Convention With My Ex”

They still have some original reporting, but I stopped going to them years ago because I don’t want to filter through dreck, and certainly aren’t signing up for their updates, in order to watch for decent items.

It does seem like hipster stuff and I don’t understand who would want to consistently read this and who their target market is.

They seem to hire lots of people to write this stuff and are looking to be a “lifestyle news” brand but who wants to be into their nihilistic, negative lifestyle?

JeremyNT• 3 years ago

It's similar to Buzzfeed (News) really.

Vice always did clickbait / lifestyle, but they also invested heavily in real hard hitting stories that other outlets ignored. Of course they also continued the clickbait / lifestyle stuff alongside it.

For a while the Real Reporting was surfacing frequently, but not so much these days, even though they're still doing it. For whatever reason, people just don't seem to see / care / value that Real Reporting as much (I have my theories...), and these outlets are struggling.

rvz• 3 years ago

Well this is what happens when you appeal to the 'Cringey hipster New Yorkers' and alienate your old viewership of showing underground or under-reported investigative journalism before 2012.

Now it seems like the readers have punished Vice when they went down that route in 2012 and all that got them was into bankruptcy much faster than they tried to predict Twitter's collapse.

Given that they chose to do that to themselves, nothing of value was lost. Henceforth:

Good riddance.

KingMob• 3 years ago

You've got the order backwards.

Vice was started by three Canadian junkies (they literally called themselves that), and for years was only available in print in the hippest neighborhoods of major cities, while printing salacious material that later became published as books like "The Vice Guide to Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll" and "DOs & DON'Ts 2: 17 Years of Street Fashion Critiques". Very little reporting.

Then slowly, over the years, the reporting arm emerged as a force to be reckoned with, but it was for "cringey hipsters" first. The old, OLD readership.

the-printer5• 3 years ago

The thing is that Vice’s main appeal was always to the cringey NY hipster crowd.

thr-nrg4• 3 years ago

It really wasn't. They just showed and and took over because their trust funds let them work without a salary.

cmrdporcupine2• 3 years ago

That's literally how they started before they became a "news" organization. The "serious media org" era happened after the hipster content.

PM_me_your_math• 3 years ago

It has always been "news" for Brooklynite hipsters. I turned down a job with them after the interviewer asked me "you are a democrat, right?"

greenie_beans• 3 years ago

i thought they've been doing that since forever?

fakedang• 3 years ago

If Vice had stuck to making sensible documentaries and news coverage, they could have focused on that niche while selling their content to Amazon, Netflix, Apple, etc.... Hopefully this bankruptcy is an opportunity for that.

specproc2• 3 years ago

They were really good for drugs coverage, and I mean that beyond the "New York Hipster smoking weed 100 times a day" comment someone else made here.

Max Daly's probably the best drug reporter out there, and was the main reason I kept tuned in for so long. Was really the last bastion of their decent content.

sva_• 3 years ago

They were really good for drugs coverage, and I mean that beyond the "New York Hipster smoking weed 100 times a day" comment someone else made here.

Really sorry, but this just reminded me of this clip: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ia7fUQXskvA

sammalloy• 3 years ago

Didn’t they break the krokodil story in the mid-2010s? That coverage was some of the best footage I’ve ever seen. I think they also did that crazy shoot about the drug that turns people in clubs and bars into zombies in South America and allows the perps to control their victims like puppets. The drug in question also wipes the memory of the victims so they can’t report the crime. That was one of the scariest videos ever made. It really had an impact on me and I think I lost my faith in humanity for about a year after I saw it.

specproc2• 3 years ago

I was kinda thinking more along the lines (ahem) of reporting on drug policy and harm reduction, and in challenging shitty tabloid journalism on drugs.

Some older examples:

- https://www.vice.com/en/article/ppvgw8/is-the-drug-trade-rea...

- https://www.vice.com/en/article/4wm5xq/drug-statistics-uk-dr...

- https://www.vice.com/en/article/jmk4p3/glue-sniffing-epidemi...

jwmoz• 3 years ago

The 2014 Ukraine coverage is brilliant.

MobileVet• 3 years ago

I ran across their North Korea report when it was posted 11 years ago and was an instant fan. Shane was compelling and of course the topic was fascinating. Very few people had gotten in there and brought film out like that before, that I had seen at least. Very eye opening

https://youtu.be/24R8JObNNQ4

xerxesaa• 3 years ago

Irrespective of the reason, this really makes me sad. Vice had made some of the most incredible content and dared to go places others simply wouldn't.

As a Pakistani, I can tell you it's very rare to see media go there. Even movies that are supposed to be set in Pakistan (Zero Dark Thirty, A Mighty Heart, etc) are filmed next door in India. And other than maybe Al-Jazeera, I rarely see international media reporting from on the ground.

Vice not only went to Pakistan, but they did at least three episodes I can recall from there. And they covered some pretty important things, such as the disfunction that resulted in Pakistan being one of the last countries to still have polio.

I speak of Pakistan as one example because I know how little our stories are represented in mainstream media, but there are many other examples where Vice seemed to be the only ones willing to go on the ground. Other examples include North Korea, Haiti, and Syria. I'll never forget watching Isobel Yeung courageously reporting in Syria while bombs literally could be heard exploding around her.

Brulaap• 3 years ago

Agreed. Also, the work by Simon Ostrovsky on Ukraine is unparalleled. (And available for free on YouTube).

local_crmdgeon3• 3 years ago

Can you explain what TF is going on with Imran Khan? Everyone I see talking about it is either American or Indian and I'm sure they're wrong about basically every detail.

It's good what happened? It's bad? He's in jail?

game_the0ry• 3 years ago

Pakistani, here.

What happened to Imran Khan is similar to what happened to and continues to happen to world leaders in unstable countries where the west financial and/or national security interests - sloppy regime changes.

As far as whether or not this turns out for the people of PK, we will never know bc he was nto in office long enough to do anything meaningful. PK needs like 20 yrs of stability to see any real progress.

I will say this - Imran Khan was very popular among the young, middle class types I know in PK (bc he is a populist), but not liked by western establishment governments. Take that for what it is worth.

roncesvalles• 3 years ago

To understand what's going on requires a deep understanding of Pakistan and its "military-veto democracy". This is the best explanation I've seen, from a veteran Indian journalist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0boy9JdZfWE

tl;dw: The powers-that-be in Pakistan -- the army and whichever political dynasty the army favors that day -- routinely overrule the popular vote because they don't believe that democracy will always spit out the best candidate. This is partly due to arrogance but also because the institutions that are supposed to keep a check on harmful populism in Pakistan are broken or corrupt. These powers-that-be have decided that IK is bad for Pakistan (twist: they're probably right about this; IK is a religious fundamentalist and a giveaway socialist in a country that is broke) and have invoked "special measures" to keep his name off the ballot or the ballot away from the people. Understandably, this has angered the people who have taken to the streets.

sfjailbird• 3 years ago

Imran Khan is one of a very few leaders in that entire region who is not corrupt, by general consensus. His political program is heavily social (practically socialist), as well as (unsurprisingly) anti-corruption. These are all great things, if you are the average Pakistani, hence his popularity.

Whether he is a good leader for the country is another matter. He is principled to a fault, which is probably also his downfall. In the world of realpolitik, he probably never stood a chance. It is questionable if he could ever actually carry out his policies, having antagonized practically the entire state apparatus.

Melatonic4• 3 years ago

I am not Pakistani but I was always surprised at the lack of attention too. Pakistan is a giant country with a ton of people and some pretty insane geography (mountains I mean) and yet there is not much media made in general about it.

I_HALF_CATS• 3 years ago

It wouldn't be beneath VICE to use sound editing to put bomb sounds into takes that didn't have them there to begin with. They quite literally have no journalism code of ethics.

tasubotadas• 3 years ago

Good riddance? I got 2 entries of "cancer journalism" on my list with them.

NY times has 6 entries. If only they would go that would make the US maybe a little less divisive.

local_crmdgeon3• 3 years ago

I agree. The "like and share" era + higher ad rates led to a proliferation of low quality, high division rags like Buzzfeed, Modern (not Original Flavor) Vice, Teen Vogue (?), Breitbart, etc.

You make money via ragebait shared on Twitter/Facebook, and you crank it out. You find some issue that's a great wedge - or you manufacture one - and you fuck that chicken until it dies.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. I hope the Right goes back to the WSJ and Economist, and the Left goes back to what the NYT used to be. What we have now is a big part of why our Republic is so divided.

lynguist• 3 years ago

Vice is how I learned about Bitcoin circa 2012 and how I learned about the casual psychedelic mushrooms consumption in Oaxaca, Mexico.

FireBy2024• 3 years ago

https://archive.ph/IRRsX

time0ut• 3 years ago

I used to read Vice when I wanted to know the details the rest of the media wouldn’t report on. The last time I read it was a few months ago. I was curious about the real facts around a certain incident. Instead of a unique perspective, I found the exact same lazy story as I saw on every other website. Plus a large helping of the boring divisive “culture war” crap that is so popular now - complete with actual naked quote mining of those the author disagreed with. How far Vice has fallen.

steveBK12310• 3 years ago

Media seems to all be A/B testing itself into the same bland editorial slants.

What is the difference reading NYT, WaPo, Atlantic, Vice, or a dozen other NY/DC based media sites?

Vice had a unique style of coverage 10-15 years ago but that definitely ended by/in the Trump era.

steveBK12310• 3 years ago

And the weird part of it all is how they have all moved to more and more restrictive paywalls over this time period.

Why would I maintain 5-10 subscriptions for content that is 80% the same?

I think the streaming video services are speed running the same issue. As a very casual TV watcher, why would I bother to pay $10ish each to NFLX, Disney, Hulu, Peacock, Paramount, HBO, Apple for the 1-2 shows each I may care about.

In a way its not even the total cost, its maintaining accounts/billing info/worrying about cancellation policies across a dozen companies.

tootie3• 3 years ago

The NY/DC duopoly on media is largely because they have the footprint to be everywhere and write with depth and accuracy. Read the NYT and Axios and you'll have all you need on politics and world news. The ascent of independent media (the substack/podcast crowd) has started to take a huge bite out of the opinion/analysis market. The damage is coming in the middle. All the local newspapers and evening news shows are approaching irrelevance and it's going to be a disaster.

testHNac• 3 years ago

The problem is that Vice kind of stories are costly to produce. And are not sensational enough to get a lot of clicks.

It's easier to do a typical 'Culture War' fear mongering type content and get easy clicks.

Also, I think we are in an echo chamber where if you don't report on comment on the latest topic, you might be perceived to belong to the other side.

The West seems to lump issues into "Good" vs "Evil". Leaving no space for News media in grey area to succeed.

I can't think of any 'Moderate' News source that is massively successful. Most of the mainstream ones can easily be classified into one camp or the other. May be just degree of devotion to the camp differs.

RhodesianHunter• 3 years ago

NPR

chiefalchemist• 3 years ago

The problem is that Vice kind of stories are costly to produce.

Perhaps. But now look how costly it is not to produce them. You can "save" by being a commodity, but eventually the (missed) opportunity cost (of doing something unique) will catch up to you.

ap99• 3 years ago

Breaking Points (to me at least) fills that middle ground where both sides are open for attack and worth defending.

awkward2• 3 years ago

It's a profitable and effective political tactic to force a position on every issue and flush out fence sitters. Even in this thread you've got people classifying institutions by how aggressively they toe the line on one by one political bugbears.

jjtheblunt• 3 years ago

Deutsche Welle seems pretty balanced

araes• 3 years ago

I keep hearing these kind of arguments about in-depth reporting being costly.

Vice went bankrupt when it stopped producing those stories.

Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_Media in 2016, Vice was making $1B ($10^9) with 3000 employees. ~$330,000 / employee. Can probably afford some plane flights and investigative telephone calls.

Per standard work year, every employee's 'supposedly' working 2080 hrs a year. ~6M work hours. You can write a lot of interesting stories, and follow a lot of leads other people are not looking at with 6M hours / year.

If you follow the "copy sensational click" route, you end up with a lot of local media, where it looks like somebody just copied the local police arrest report.

You don't stand out by just copying / dopplegangering whatever looks shiny.

trevin2• 3 years ago

Vice seems to have fallen victim to the increased polarization and agenda-ridden stories that have swept up so many media companies. They used to report on unique angles, find edgy topics to talk about...the last few years they regurgitate the same left-leaning talking points that one can find in any number of other media outlets.

They lost their soul and became what they probably used to hate.

phpisthebest4• 3 years ago

They lost their soul

They accepted funding from large media companies (Disney), and got rid most of their founding members, and original employees replacing them with "journalists" that largely float around between those properties that "regurgitate the same left-leaning talking points"

kornhole2• 3 years ago

The funding mechanism of these organizations reveals a lot about the trajectory. Some start out with a lot of seed money with few restrictions. If they start to rely on big advertisers or funding from 'philanthropists', the content is usually influenced by these sources. The best publications I find these days are funded by donations from readers. This keeps them independent and not beholden to those big funders. Fund the good organizations via Patreon, Locals, Substack, direct.. to keep them honest.

sillyfluke• 3 years ago

I find it strange that it seemingly isn't mentioned in the top comments but the thing that killed Vice was simple: twitter.

It took down a lot of cultural media landmarks by usurping their relevance, Vice was one of the big ones.

They needed to move at the speed of gossip with takes that were truly original in order to survive. they didn't.

AzzieElbab• 3 years ago

I just opened vice news from a North American location and went through the headlines. The politicization is through the roof, and the headlines do not match the context. I am sure there is a market for this type of journalism, but it is much smaller these days because every org left and right is doing it.

nearmuse• 3 years ago

I mostly knew it for Simon Ostrovsky in eastern Ukraine. In the recent years it has seemingly become more politically biased like many other papers, so I stopped paying attention - it simply did not stand out anymore.

voytec• 3 years ago

Related thread from 2 weeks ago: Vice is said to be headed for bankruptcy [1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35780517

causi• 3 years ago

Really a shame but can't say it's unexpected. For every incredible documentary video there were ten videos about some skateboarder who once appeared in the background of a music video or about how transgender tattoo artists are the only thing holding up Western civilization.

trevin2• 3 years ago

They've gotten away from high-quality docs in recent years (as has much of the media) but the Abandoned series from ~2016 was a beautiful portrait of the underbelly of America and the people who live there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDniDNY03JE

setgree2• 3 years ago

Like 10 years ago Vice bought the building that housed my favorite venue in Williamsburg, Glasslands, and then proceeded to do basically nothing with it. So I'll always hold that against them/the VCs who funded them.

disantlor• 3 years ago

lets not forget death by audio!

setgree2• 3 years ago

for context: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/nyregion/the-last-rites-f...

The end of D.B.A., as it’s known, along with that of its neighboring venue Glasslands — Vice, the media conglomerate, is taking over the building — was met with hand-wringing but also weary resignation. As the neighborhood around it was transformed from abandoned lots to high-rise condos, it was only a matter of time until a small, semi-underground, all-ages club, which steadfastly kept ticket prices low, disappeared. Copies of Vice magazine were shredded in commemoration.

yannis72• 3 years ago

interesting how certain industries were never "disrupted" by startups, no matter the amount of hype that was generated in the mid-2010s [1]; banking is a major example (no startup bank overthrew JPMC) but the same seems to apply to legacy media.

[1] Shane Smith (VICE founder) quote about Murdoch during an FT interview: "I have Gen Y, I have social [media], I have online video. You have none of that. I have the future, you have the past." https://www.ft.com/content/61c51d64-4a9c-11e2-968a-00144feab...

thewinnie• 3 years ago

As a person from Ukraine, I love Vice for their coverage of Russia-Ukraine conflict at 2014. But their last interview with a Russian children’s commissioner felt like its not Vice anymore. Seems like they been trying to provide an explanation on why russia stealing children's from Ukraine. So i'm not sure what do I think about vice at this moment. Maybe its time to go

CameronNemo2• 3 years ago

That's what you got from that interview? I thought they were very neutral, and even asked some hard questions. To do the interview in the first place was a huge risk... To dig in and smear dirt in Russia's face would have been suicidal.

yannis72• 3 years ago

VICE seemed to make sense at a given time + place + context: * Gonzo journalism: "On my way to North Korea I'm gonna stop by my auntie where over lunch she'd beg me not to go" * Peak hipster: pre-pandemic hyper-urbanised young white collar people who started making money * Excitement about Web 2.0 weirdness and the over-sharing culture

all of the above created a compelling package back then, but don't seem to scale to a "global media empire" Shane Smith wanted to make, one that would topple the incumbents.

mmcclure• 3 years ago

I'm a NYT subscriber, but a headline from them calling another (younger) news source a "decayed digital colossus" feels a bit rock-glass-house-y.

That being said, my personal opinion of them is pretty similar. I used to love Vice; it felt like they really were the news outlet that was telling a different story from the rest of media. Not a different perspective on the same story, a totally different story, and hard journalism at that. Could just be me, but it hasn't felt that way for years now.

rc_mob• 3 years ago

propublica is king of the hill right now.

wombat-man2• 3 years ago

NYT feels like they're doing a good job in the new digital space. I am subscribing to more news sites I value, and I hope others do the same!

keane• 3 years ago

Your observation reminds me of a fun 2010 interaction between Vice and NYT illustrating some tension then between the two outlets that is featured in the documentary Page One: Inside the New York Times. (David Carr and Shane Smith would later laugh together about the exchange during a panel at Vanity Fair's New Establishment Summit in 2014.) Excerpt: https://youtu.be/iLmkec_4Rfo Full: https://hoopladigital.com/title/11049551

jdalgetty• 3 years ago

I hope they can survive this

yafbum2• 3 years ago

I remember when Vice covered Russia's invasion of Crimea. It was phenomenal on-the-ground coverage at a time when all we got otherwise were CNN BS pros, and a precursor to a lot of new takes on war coverage. I remember "Huang's World", a jubilant food show that also revealed Eddie Huang's authentic, unfiltered Chinese American voice, who'd go on to success as Fresh off the boat author. Maybe this stuff was too easy to copy or too expensive, but Vice doesn't stand apart as much anymore.

secondcoming2• 3 years ago

Simon Ostrovsky’s reporting from Ukraine was great. He even got beaten up by little green men.

bawolff• 3 years ago

I didn't read vice often, but there videos on the afghanistan war is some of the most intersting coverage of the war i have seen and made the subsequent failure make sense https://youtu.be/BKHPTHx0ScQ

DEDLINE• 3 years ago

Vice News Tonight, when it was on HBO, was fantastic. 30-minutes of global headlines moving very quickly. I would have paid $15/month for this show alone.

wombat-man2• 3 years ago

Vice used to be a really fun magazine to flip through. I enjoyed some of their mini docs but never really sat down to watch their HBO show regularly. They really pushed for growth which in retrospect, should have been recognized as a reach. Wish they somehow continued with a smaller footprint, putting out interesting, unusual content. But maybe it never was profitable. Maybe they followed the same VC playbook of taking on more capital and promising continued, rapid growth.

bionhoward• 3 years ago

Vice content is pretty awesome a lot of the time so this sucks

starkparker• 3 years ago

Creators who made the things that comments in this thread said they liked about Vice "back when it was good", and where they are now:

- Suroosh Alvi, documentaries on Pakistan. Vice co-founder. VICE season 4 on Showtime.

- Simon Ostrovsky, Russian Roulette on Ukraine. Now with PBS NewsHour; most recent story on US company Haas Automation working with the Russian arms industry. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/american-company-accused-o...

- Henry Langston, Russian Roulette on Ukraine. Founded Change Incorporated under the VICE umbrella. Freelanced for Huffpost and still occasionally for Vice.

- Isobel Yeung, Putin's Crimea, Syria war, 2017 Philippines armed forces embed. Still at Vice. VICE season 4 on Showtime.

- Maya Rostowska, documentaries on Ukraine. Still at Vice.

- Rick McCrank, Abandoned (2016), Post Radical (2018). Was then and still is a pro skateboarder and skateshop owner. Co-owns skate wheel company Momentum. Probably on a skateboard in Vancouver right now. https://chromeballincident.blogspot.com/2022/09/chrome-ball-...

- Esteban Sheridan Cárdenas, Edith Valle. Look at These Fucking Boots. Sheridan founded music festival Norte Sonoro, then later a live-event production company. Valle is a freelance cinematographer: https://edithvalle.com/

- Eddie Huang. Directed Boogie (2021), currently writer/executive producer of upcoming series Panda on Showtime. Guested on Joe Rogan a month ago to talk about Vice.

- Daniel Michael Hernández, Munchies; Oaxacan shrooms. Left Vice in 2017. Relaunched L.A. Taco, then became food editor of the Los Angeles Times.

- Jake Hanrahan. "Is Bitcoin the Future of Money, or Just the Future of Buying Internet Drugs?", 2012; also covered Turkey, Ukraine for Vice in 2015–16. Left Vice in 2017 "due to differences with the new management's editorial direction". Freelanced on Atomwaffen Division for Documenting Hate with Frontline PBS/ProPublica, then founded Popular Front: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5reApl_5YtfqNEEQi5L8GQ

- Max Daly, 2019 series on drugs and crime. Still Vice's global drugs editor.

- Nagieb Khaja, 2015 Afghanistan coverage. Danish documentarian, still active.

- Ben John Anderson. This Is What Winning Looks Like (2013) and The Interpreters (2014) in Afghanistan, Fighting ISIS (2016). Suffers from PTSD. Was still working with Vice in 2022, as an executive producer on One-Armed Chef.

- David Choe. Scrapping (2014). An artist before and after Vice. Had a cameo in The Mandalorian, The Choe Show podcast got to FX with Andy Capper, and he now has a role in the Steven Yeun/Ali Wong Netflix show Beef.

- Andy Capper. Director, Scrapping, Vice Guide to Liberia, Krokodil Tears. Also did Lil Bub & Friendz, Chiraq, and Noisey's hour-long geographical docuemntaries for Vice. Most recently made People Like You about the opioid epidemic in 2022 for Happy Now Film/Malibu.

All of the videos in this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35945196 are from the last 9 or so months, so no point in "where are they now"-ing them.

The exodus around 2017 around the time of two big changes: the June 2017 TPG $450M investment that valued Vice at around $5-6 billion: https://www.wsj.com/articles/vice-media-secures-450-million-...

Followed by the December 2017 NYT investigative report into alleged sexual harassment that turned over several of Vice's producers and editorial staff, including the head of Vice's documentary films unit, who had settled a lawsuit over alleged retaliation and had already been fired even before the report came out: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/23/business/media/vice-sexua...

racked• 3 years ago

I really loved their series Hamilton's Pharmacopoeia. In-depth, raw drug making and taking by a serious (though odd) expert.

A shame they geofenced the shit out of it, forcing me to pirate it.

hellohihello135• 3 years ago

It’s weird that no one is seeing the big picture here. Media companies are collapsing because three companies (meta, google, amazon) monopolized the advertising money.

Vice, Decayed Digital Colossus, Files for Bankruptcy

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