There's an interesting confrontation over that piece in the NY Times 'Page Six' documentary, which filmed David Carr, the Times's then media correspondent, interviewing the Vice Founders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLmkec_4Rfo
I think part of the Vice pitch was always that it was a disruptor of the old-fashioned media narratives, uncovering the stories to which boring old media was blind. I tend to agree with Carr's implicit critique here that we undervalue the journalistic, societal value of the sort of unglamorous coverage in which traditional media invests and at which it excels.
> I think part of the Vice pitch was always that it was a disruptor of the old-fashioned media narratives, uncovering the stories to which boring old media was blind.
That was a pitch that they stole from Unreported World [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477545/], and like the new Krishnan Guru-Murthy-produced version of Unreported World, Vice strictly stuck to areas of current US interest and tightly followed CIA and administration talking points.
Oh man this is from the really early days. It's where most of us learned of the bizarrely named Liberian fighter "General Butt Naked" for the first time.
Fascinating story, and a great retelling on the Behind the Bastards podcast if anyone is interested. The history of Liberia isn’t the nicest topic, but something that doesn’t seem widely known and maybe should be.
I think part of the Vice pitch was always that it was a disruptor of the old-fashioned media narratives, uncovering the stories to which boring old media was blind. I tend to agree with Carr's implicit critique here that we undervalue the journalistic, societal value of the sort of unglamorous coverage in which traditional media invests and at which it excels.