Not a surprise - most journalism has been declining since Google and Meta have taken over news (and now TikTok). People just have so many options to get whatever news they want. And no one consumes media the way they used to anymore. More of this will come - across the spectrum.
I liked Vice. They were good and hard hitting. Still plenty on yt i don't bother to depress myself with. Last few years were an obvious deathspiral. Was probably the company succession modeled after that Kendall bought.
Vice stopped being special years ago. They were reporting stories no one else was and didn’t give a damn about politics when they fat Canadian guy owned them… once he cashed out, they lost their edge, they didn’t bring the same quality of story. I don’t know why they are being called “woke”, they tended to not be overly political other than pointing out bullshit.
Vice had a nasty hostile work environment scandal a couple years back. Kind of ironic for a place that looks into and uncovers the wrong doings of others.
The last good show they had was that chubby dude from New York eating food Kinda like low budget Anthony bourdain
Vice was basically setting its cash on fire during that period. This is the same story for all new journalism outfits. You can create great journalism but there's no business model that will allow you to properly monetize that work. And no one has kind things to say about Shane Smith so I dont think we can give him credit for much of anything. Frankly, he actually botched Vice's future when he refused to sell to Disney. They were ready to pay 3 BILLION dollars for the whole thing but Shane Smith was convinced it was worth double that because he convinced some stupid VC to fund a round at a 6 billion dollar valuation. This is no different than Buzzfeed who also had some excellent journalists do work that ultimately generated very little revenue for the company.
I've enjoyed Vice's content over the years. I'll be sad to see them go as a news source. It did rub me the wrong way when it came out they had a hostile work environment, journalists who highlight and uncover the wrong doings of others, often seeming "above" such conduct themselves, look really bad when it comes out bad practices are taking place in their own company. I think they had/have a left leaning tilt but that's most journalism/news folks.
