[gvedem]

It's not at all universal. It's just much harder for media to be consistent about than individuals, because unless a media outlet has very strict editorial policies, it is comprised of many people with many beliefs and will end up being inconsistent by default. Especially an outlet like Vice, which is entertainment-focused and doesn't make much of an effort to distinguish opinion pieces from reporting. If a "news" site doesn't have a separate tab that says "opinion", you're gonna get opinion all over everything.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/08/the-slate-star-codex-p...

[noirscape]

For what it counts, Vice does have a fairly strict editorial policy, which more or less is "we want David vs. Goliath stories". It becomes very obvious after a while that this is how Vice wants the world to be seen.

Everyone is either "The Man" and therefore evil, or is sticking it to "The Man" and is therefore heroic. I've been friends with people that have been interviewed by Vice - this is the single most annoying thing about them. Most of them are hobbyists (Nintendo-console related, both modding and emulation) who do what they do "because it's cool and fun to do".

Then Vice barges in, interviews them and/or their team members and suddenly the angle under which the coverage is presented becomes how these awesome, super cool hackers are doing it because they want to stick it to the Big Evil Nintendo which is just... not at all the motive. None of those people are/were out to be a David taking up the sword against the Goliath that is Nintendo. They just wanted to tinker with a console because of curiosity.

Vice is (alongside to a lesser degree Kotaku) responsible for basically ruining any conversation about homebrew, console modding and emulation by putting the "it's good to pirate actually" motivation front and center for hacking and modifying consoles. Like... fucking talk to these people. Almost every single one hates having their work associated with piracy since it can cause serious reputational harm (and is often inaccurate to boot), yet Vice doesn't give a single flying shit about that since Nintendo is "The Man" and that means that any action that can be construed as being against them is morally justified.

Probably one of the worst outlets to ever link (and for what it counts, what they cover usually has better coverage elsewhere so... yeah, avoid them if you can). Strongly also recommend to avoid ever talking to them if you can help it, they will slant the conversation to further that editorial policy if they can.

[throwayyy479087]

The funniest thing is that they're a _horrible_ employer. I've known a bunch of people who work there: They demand unpaid OT, pay shit, have rampant sexual harassment, and generally act like a 60's marketing company.

They are Goliath, and the random conservative twitter people they write hit pieces on are David.

[KingOfCoders]

"they will slant the conversation"

I was interviewed by some large magazines and some TV stations years back (Germany, topic was Geocaching and Confluencing - we had some firsts, yes! ;-). All of them came with a finished story and were only looking for sound bites.

[DeathArrow]

> unless a media outlet has very strict editorial policies, it is comprised of many people with many beliefs

You mean there are people with conservative beliefs writing for VICE?

[throwayyy479087]

Ironically Vice is directly responsible for creation of the Proud Boys.

[hnbad]

More specifically Gavin McInnes, founder of the Proud Boys, is co-founder of Vice but left Vice in 2008.

According to Wikipedia he has described himself as "a fiscal conservative and libertarian" whereas Wikipedia describes the Proud Boys as "far-right neo-fascist".

Vice doesn't seem to have any political allegiance in terms of US partisan politics but I think it's fair to describe them as socially progressive but otherwise (right) libertarian. They seem to be more "anti-establishment" than left or right.