[caseyross]

Isn't it more likely to be the case that no one was willing to pay for the investigative journalism?

You see this everywhere. The clickbait is a funding source for the real work. Journalists almost never want to push garbage on the public --- they're usually forced to by management, either as an attempt at growth-at-all-costs or as a revenue source of last resort.

[gspencley]

Given they are declaring bankruptcy, there seems to be a signal indicating the possibility that no one was willing to pay for the alternative either.

[clemailacct1]

This is so spot on of a rebuttal. Vice’s shift into what they’ve become was a top-down terrible choice from what they used to be.

[motoxpro]

The rebuttal to that is that neither worked. They wouldn’t have switched if the original style worked. They wouldn’t have gone bankrupt if the switch worked. They would have gone back to the original style of it worked before the switch.

[gspencley]

Yeah my comment wasn't actually intended as "rebuttal" so much as an observation that something is seriously broken in traditional news media.

It is a business, and so it is reasonable to have to just accept that a certain amount of sensationalism, click-bait and other "metric-increasing" tactics will be omnipresent so long as "traditional news media" continues to exist in some form. I've read that this has always been the case anyway, and people complaining about it is as old as people complaining about taxes. But clearly the target audience is just not buying what they are selling these days, no matter what that is.

I suspect that, in addition to the Internet putting serious competitive pressure on print media, social media is also playing a big factor in the demand for traditional news outlets. In current year, everyone is carrying a camera with them at all times and the ability to publish content instantly. When most people are so "connected", such that they can find out what is happening around them the instant it happens in a quick clip or headline, what use is there for long-form articles?

[motoxpro]

I agree with all of that.

I would just say that, the internet allows for more niche things in general. If you want more sensationalized articles, it’s got that, if you want more rational takes, it’s got that. I can get exactly the flavor I want and in that sense why would I watch something that by definition has to cater to everyone. Similar to music, why listen to the radio when I could listen to the exact music I want 24/7.

Less a bug with news organizations and more a feature that the internet enabled. This same thing has played out in a dozen different industries for the same reason.