Vice News (stylized as VICE News) is
Vice Media
Vice Media Group LLC is an American-Canadian digital media and broadcasting company. , the Vice Media Group included five main business areas: VICE.com (digital content); VICE STUDIOS (film and TV production) VICE TV (also known as VICELAND); ...
's current affairs channel, producing daily documentary essays and
video
Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...
through its website and
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...
channel. It promotes itself on its coverage of "under-reported stories". Vice News was created in December 2013 and is based in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
, though it has bureaus worldwide.
History
Before Vice News was founded, ''
Vice
A vice is a practice, behaviour, or Habit (psychology), habit generally considered immorality, immoral, sinful, crime, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refe ...
'' published news documentaries and news reports from around the world through its
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...
channel alongside other programs. ''Vice'' had reported on events such as
crime in Venezuela, the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is one of the world's most enduring conflicts, beginning in the mid-20th century. Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, alongside other eff ...
,
protests in Turkey
A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one.
Protests can be thought of as acts of coopera ...
, the
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and ...
n and
Iranian
Iranian may refer to:
* Iran, a sovereign state
* Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran
* Iranian lan ...
regimes, the
Uyghur genocide
The Chinese government has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang that is often characterized as genocide. Since 2014, the Chinese government, under t ...
, and the
Syrian Civil War through their own YouTube channel and website. After the creation of Vice News as a separate division, its reporting greatly increased with worldwide coverage starting immediately with videos published on YouTube and articles on its website daily.
In December 2013, Vice Media expanded its international news division into an independent division dedicated exclusively to news and created Vice News. Vice Media put $50 million into its news division, setting up 34
bureaus worldwide and drawing praise for its in-depth coverage of international news. Vice News has primarily targeted a younger audience comprised predominantly of
millennials
Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the Western demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2 ...
, the same audience to which its parent company appeals.
In November 2014, Vice News launched its French-language version.
In October 2015 Vice hired
Josh Tyrangiel to run a daily Vice News show for
HBO. Tyrangiel had recently left ''
Bloomberg Businessweek
''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...
'', where he was reported to be "a divisive figure who was both admired and despised during his six years there." Tyrangiel named Ryan McCarthy, formerly an assistant editor of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', as editor-in-chief of Vice News.
In May 2016, it was announced that Tyrangiel had also been given control of the weekly Vice on HBO show as well as Vice News. As the announcement was made, Tyrangiel promptly laid off much of the news staff.
In an interview given the previous week, Vice Media founder
Shane Smith called Tyrangiel "a murderer," foretelling a "bloodbath" in digital media.
On May 24, 2016, a change in leadership at Vice News resulted in the laying off of some 20 editorial and production staff members.
That June, Tyrangiel touted various new hires he had brought aboard as part of his team.
In December 2016, it was announced that Vice News had entered into a partnership with ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide ...
'' newspaper that will include ''Guardian'' journalists working at Vice's offices in
East London
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...
and contributing to the two HBO television programs currently on the air. It will also include allowing ''The Guardian'' access to Vice's video production skills with content distributed to its millennial-skewed global audience.
Reporters
Vice News had more than 100 members of its reporting and editorial staff in 35 bureaus around the world including
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
,
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...
,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
,
Berlin
Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...
,
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley of ...
,
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...
,
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...
,
Istanbul
Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...
,
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
,
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
, and
Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Ac ...
. On April 21, 2014, while covering the
Russo-Ukrainian War
The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since February 2014. Following Ukraine's Rev ...
,
Simon Ostrovsky, a Vice News reporter was kidnapped by
pro-Russian separatist forces and held for three days until being released in
Sloviansk
Sloviansk ( uk, Слов'янськ, Sloviansk ; russian: Славянск, Slavyansk or ; prior to 1784 – Tor) is a city in the Kramatorsk district of the Donetsk region of Ukraine, the administrative center of the Slovyansk urban commun ...
.
Programming and content
Since its creation, Vice News has covered emerging events and widespread issues around the world. Every day it publishes a daily news capsule called "News Beyond the Headlines" where it briefly covers four daily stories which did not receive much coverage by other mainstream news outlets but it still considers important. It also publishes daily articles on its website on a variety of world current events, along with maintaining a Vice News Wire where it displays wire reports from around the world.
It has several prominent past and ongoing documentary series including:
Russian military intervention in Ukraine
The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since February 2014. Following Ukraine's Revo ...
;
civil war in Iraq; the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is one of the world's most enduring conflicts, beginning in the mid-20th century. Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, alongside other eff ...
; the
Western Sahara conflict; the struggles of Afghan interpreters working for the US military in acquiring visas; the prison crisis in the US at
Salinas Valley State Prison;
protests against the FIFA World Cup in Brazil;
Venezuelan anti-government protests; expansion of the
Islamic State
An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ...
;
protests in Ferguson, Missouri; the
Syrian Civil War; the militarization of America's police forces and
Central American refugees fleeing street gangs borne in
American prisons to cross the American border;
global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in a broader sense also includes ...
and the evidence of the
melting of Antarctica's glaciers; and the build-up of military forces of Russia with Scandinavians assisted by the American military.
Television series
* ''Vice on City'': A weekly television series on
City
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be de ...
, a Canadian television network, of documentaries that highlight Vice News reporting.
* ''
Vice
A vice is a practice, behaviour, or Habit (psychology), habit generally considered immorality, immoral, sinful, crime, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refe ...
'': A newsmagazine television series on
Showtime (TV network)
Showtime is an American premium television network owned by Paramount Media Networks, and is the flagship property of the namesake parent company, Showtime Networks, a part of Paramount Media Networks. Showtime's programming primarily includes t ...
* ''
Vice News Tonight
''Vice News Tonight'' is an American news program currently broadcast on Vice on TV and originally broadcast on HBO as the channel's first-ever daily series, premiering October 2016. HBO cancelled the series after three seasons, ending September ...
'': A daily evening news broadcast on
Vice on TV
Reception
The Vice News YouTube page has 7.55 million subscribers as well as more than 1.8 billion views in total. and in August 2014, was described by ''The Guardian'' as one of the fastest growing channels on YouTube.
Lara Pendergast, deputy online editor at the UK magazine ''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''Th ...
'' argues that Vice News gets its strength and popularity by getting younger audiences to become more and more interested about international news in a way that traditional media has not. "Its videos may fail every rule in the
BBC impartiality book, but they are brilliantly edited and, often, utterly compelling. Vice News has found young, fearless foreign correspondents to serve a youthful audience who are bored stiff by traditional outlets but are quite prepared to watch videos on their mobile phones."
"Vice's brand image marketing as an edgy, hip outlet have helped drive its popularity with young people", says media critic Charles Johnson. "Mainstream media is not trusted by a lot of people, and rightly so, so they
icestep in and fill in", he says. "People see a sense of fun behind it.
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz; November 28, 1962) is an American comedian, political commentator, and television host. He hosted '' The Daily Show'', a satirical news program on Comedy Central, from 1999 to 2015 and now hosts '' ...
is very popular, but he's an entertainer. Vice is something similar."
Rick Edmonds, media and business analyst at the
Poynter Institute, critiques Vice News' reporting as "raw and tasteless sometimes" and more akin to personal essays than balanced journalism. Other critiques mention that its work is more affiliated with entertainment than hard-hitting news.
In a 2013 opinion piece for ''
U.S. News & World Report'', editor of the New York-based
Foreign Policy Association Robert Nolan, stated that Vice's
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and ...
reporting was "more
''Jackass'' TV series than journalism".
Awards
Vice News has won four
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...
s for its documentary programs, ''The Islamic State'' and ''Last Chance High''
in 2015, ''Charlottesville: Race and Terror''
in 2017, and ''Losing Ground''
in 2020. In 2020,
Emily Green of Vice News jointly won the first
Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting with ''
This American Life
''This American Life'' (''TAL'') is an American monthly hour-long radio program produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media and hosted by Ira Glass. It is broadcast on numerous public radio stations in the United States and internatio ...
'' and
Molly O'Toole of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...
'' for their collaboration on "The Out Crowd", an investigative podcast episode on the effects of the
Remain in Mexico policy.
In 2021, Vice News won the
Rory Peck Award for "Uyghurs Who Fled China Now Face Repression in Pakistan", the
Lorenzo Natali Media Prize for "Rohingya Brides Thought They Were Fleeing Violence. Then They Met Their Grooms.", the
Online Journalism Award
The Online News Association (ONA), founded in 1999, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located in Washington D.C., United States. It is the world's largest association of digital journalists, with more than 2,000 members.
The majority of O ...
for "The Story of...", and two
Edward R. Murrow Awards for "Say Her Name: Investigating the Death of Breonna Taylor" and "Life Under Bombs: On the Frontlines of Fighting in Azerbaijan". In 2022, Vice News won the
Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award for "The Shockwave".
From 2018 to 2021, Vice News received more
News & Documentary Emmy Award nominations each year than any other organization. Vice News was nominated for 23 News & Documentary Emmy Awards in 2021, winning four.
References
External links
*
*
Vice on City (TV network)The Islamic State (Full Length)— documentary about the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ...
.
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