from Hacker News

Vice files for Bankruptcy

by 7ero on 5/15/23, 7:18 AM with 155 comments

  • by chmod775 on 5/15/23, 9:17 AM

    Some years ago they had a large audience, me included, who got great value out of their investigative journalism. At some point they started pivoting into some weird form of advocacy journalism and clickbait garbage, alienating their existing audience, and apparently failing to find a new one.

    Good riddance.

  • by sorokod on 5/15/23, 8:54 AM

    Some of their reports were remarkable, for example "The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia" [1] - that takes courage.

    [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRuSS0iiFyo

  • by shp0ngle on 5/15/23, 8:03 AM

    Vice is... well, Vice.

    I will miss their dispatches from war zones (I want to say "unfiltered", but they are filtered of course) and their Motherboard (Joseph Cox himself carries Motherboard on his back)

  • by lrpe on 5/15/23, 8:44 AM

    I remember how cool their stuff was ~10 years ago.

    Won't miss what they became.

  • by samwillis on 5/15/23, 8:11 AM

  • by berjin on 5/15/23, 10:52 AM

    Whenever I think of Vice I think of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia7fUQXskvA

  • by kingsloi on 5/15/23, 1:51 PM

    Bummer, I haven't watched much of their more recent stuff, but I absolutely loved their "The Last Week of High School in Gary, Indiana" episode/story.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plqd8APvln0

  • by plantain on 5/15/23, 10:53 AM

    Really sad about this. Vice went places no one else would go, and did deep dives on topics (drugs) conventional media wouldn't touch.

  • by karaterobot on 5/15/23, 2:42 PM

    When Vice's quality went down, did any other independent journalists step into the breach? There are plenty of good analysis channels on YouTube, but I mean actually going into (e.g.) a warzone and reporting from the ground.

  • by red_trumpet on 5/15/23, 7:58 AM

  • by fergie on 5/15/23, 10:26 AM

    Its easy to take the piss out of Vice, but the world would be a much poorer and less informed place without it.

  • by trollied on 5/15/23, 10:24 AM

    I liked some of their output. Hamilton's Pharmacopeia is an amazing show, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton%27s_Pharmacopeia

  • by hutzlibu on 5/15/23, 8:03 AM

    Do people consider this as a great loss?

    I did not liked the sensationalistic format very much, so I avoided them, but they seemed to have done some investigative journalism?

  • by ETH_start on 5/15/23, 6:35 PM

    Their employees only unionized 8 years ago. The rapid decline and eventual bankruptcy of a company following unionization is a common pattern.

    And unfortunately, the bankrupt company cannot get out of its collective bargaining agreements, making it difficult to find any buyers for its business units.

  • by nubinetwork on 5/15/23, 10:05 AM

  • by unixhero on 5/15/23, 10:01 AM

    No more Better Man episodes :(

  • by bearmode on 5/15/23, 9:50 AM

    God what a shame, they put out some really damn good journalism.

  • by local_crmdgeon on 5/15/23, 11:38 AM

    Anyone want to try to buy it with me? Might be fun.

  • by alphabettsy on 5/15/23, 1:24 PM

    Makes me sad. I love their content.

  • by oger on 5/15/23, 10:47 AM

    Remember what they did to Naomi Wu (aka. SexyCyborg / https://www.youtube.com/@Naomi-Wu).

    Vice's behaviour was unethical at best and Naomi - who is a wonderful tech content creator - got into significant trouble putting her business at serious risk.

    Why would you do that as a "journalist"?

    https://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-nao...