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In digital media, nothing seems a l’abris from spontaneous dissolution, and it seems like a good portion of Vice’s written news business is on the chopping block as news broke of mass layoffs in a bid to pivot to video. This also comes on the heels on an organizing effort that seems to have now been in vain–whatever you may think of the site’s reputation and how the brand doesn’t exactly have a consistent image between its video and written components, it’s a sad state of affairs to have yet another vestige of online media completely gutted as business interests take precedence.
Some might be wondering what is Vice? In this particular situation, it may be prescient to ask “why is Vice?” instead. “Vice’s attraction for its valuable millennial audience is predicated on the notion that it is real and raw, not plastic and prepackaged like the rest of the mainstream media world,” writes Chris Ip for the Columbia Journalism Review. “But it may be truer to say that Vice simply packages itself more deftly than almost any other big media company. […] [It] has mastered the mass production of authenticity for profit. But editorial standards change when your aim is not to be an entertainment company, but a trusted source of news.”
