Wait, we’re internet-shaming Vice now? What did Vice do?
I watched a documentary on BBC 4 just last night about Socrates, seems apt:
tldr; “Look at the fool Socrates with his piety! What an oaf he is to challenge the establishment!”
As @SoylentPlaid says, what did Vice do? Damn these documentary film makers educating the masses! Mock them! Return to the status quo immediately!
Sensationalized basically everything, told quite a few outright lies, treat their employees like shit(like vastly underpaying them and firing them if they complain), Predatory hiring practices, have no separation between business/advertorial and editorial, Demanded advertorial clear any advertiser or potential advertiser related story, higher-ups at VICE using the magazine to promote their friend’s projects with zero disclosure(including at least one instance where a writer had a story spiked because they gave an honest review - and thought the album was garbage), taking pay for coverage, paying for coverage and paying for exclusivity, pushing out long established community venues to build a stupidly ostentatious office, they’re partnered with Live Nation(who are one of the few live music companies worse than Ticketmaster, with whom they previously tried to merge), a serious amount of their output is misery tourism dressed up as coverage, just for a few.
And that’s before you get to the legion of individual incidents and problematic stories, like the time they covered a “Reclusive engineer who has revolutionized fusion power in his basement”(who wasn’t, isn’t, and absolutely didn’t), the time they failed at basic journalistic source protection(and were directly responsible for getting John McAfee arrested in Belize), or the numerous times they’ve been caught telling porkies in their “Documentaries” (like the time they claimed they bribed their way into North Korea, when they actually just paid the usual tour fee, or claimed they had an interview with Kim Jong Un, which has never surfaced and nobody - including VICE staff - have ever seen evidence of.)
Edit - Oh, and I’m pretty sure that Shane Smith is a pathological liar and a complete psycho. Sort of like a Hipster Patrick Bateman, except without the good looks or charm.
This is all true, but the NYT sure aren’t worthy of being able to point the Finger of Righteousness at them. The NYT has been guilty of a lot of the same crap over the years. This video smacks of player hating of the first order, oozing with self-entitled indignation, bitterness and jealousy.
Everything else aside, isn’t it fun to watch that one guy fold his arms and say, “It’s not funny!”
SHANE SMITH:
Does not every young person love brands which he deems noble and just and fucking good, and hate the opposite of them?
EUTHYPHRO:
Very true.
SHANE SMITH:
But, as you say, fucking young people regard the same brands, some as rad and others as fucking shitty,—about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and fightings among them, and this fucks me up.
EUTHYPHRO:
Very true.
SHANE SMITH:
Then the same fucking brands are hated by regular fucking guys and loved by regular fucking guys, and are both fucking shitty and dear to them?
EUTHYPHRO:
True.
SHANE SMITH:
And upon this view: the same brands, Euthyphro, will be rad and also fucking shitty?
EUTHYPHRO:
I do not engage in corporate portraiture…but so I should suppose.
SHANE SMITH:
Then, my friend, I am sitting there going—it is fucking insane that you have not answered the question which I asked. For I certainly did not ask you to tell me about surfing, but indeed of what brands are both rad and fucked up: but now it would seem that what is loved by regular fucking guys is also hated by them. And therefore, Euthyphro, in thus chastising our youth-fucking-oriented brand you may very likely be doing what is agreeable to fucking CNN but disagreeable to Gavin McInnes or fucking Matt Taibbi, and what is acceptable to viewers over 49 but unacceptable to Bushwick mixologists, and there may be other fucking target demographics who have similar differences of opinion about this shit.
Assuming that’s true and we all believe it - I’m dubious, since you don’t get to be known as a paper of record for doing even a quarter of the shit VICE does, but I’ll go with it for now - there’s one problem with that. It’s not the NYT - It’s David Carr, speaking as David Carr, not as a representative of the NYT. In context, when he says “We”, he’s speaking about traditional journalists, rather than the outlet he was working for, IIRC. He’s the one you should be trying to find fault with, if anyone. Good luck, though - Not saying he’s a perfect dude, but he’s pretty bloody close to unimpeachable as a journalist.
That’s also from a documentary ABOUT the NYT, not FROM the NYT. It’s called “Page One: Inside the New York Times”, you should give it a watch, bloody good stuff.
As a side note, it should also be pointed out - sure, the NYT has engaged in half the things on that list. But they’ve also engaged in those things over a period of 164 years. Back in the day, that was considered journalism - I mean, Pulizer, the man whose name is synonymous with quality reporting, and has a prestigious award named after him for just that, used to pull shit that would put Upworthy and the like to fits, back in those days.
VICE, by comparison, have engaged in all that since they took up the name in 1996, and in a time well past when we figured out that this sort of shit is not alright, and certainly not journalism, let alone good journalism.
When your audience is fixated on vague iconoclasm and edgy authenticity, it’s hard to be surprised when that same attitude is turned against you. Live by the hipster sword, die by the hipster sword.
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