Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Murdoch Media Journalists 'Embedded' in Occupy Movement Through Vice Media

Anonymous CentCom | 13.05.2014 03:37

Murdoch Media Journalists 'Embedded' in Occupy Movement Through Vice Media





You recently began something called Vice News. How is it different from what Vice already does? Through YouTube, we learned that our audience wants more news. So news is going to be its own offering. It’s a new site with long-form video, short-form video, shows on the environment, economics, conflict.

Vice was a hip magazine, and now it’s a media company that works directly with corporations, which is sort of necessarily unhip. When we started the magazine, we had to have one page of ads for every page of content. That was our rule. We learned very early on you can’t be precious about that, because then you don’t have a thing. Partnering with a brand is just a smarter way of doing it.

You’ve said that objective news is impossible because no one is really objective. I grew up in Canada, and I live in New York. When I go to cover something in Afghanistan or in Iraq, I don’t know all the facts. I don’t know both sides of the story. It’s impossible to.

But don’t you think that’s why journalism has strict rules — precisely because no one can be objective? I understand it, and people can try to do that, for sure. I don’t believe in it myself. It’s fake, so we don’t do it. Then the journalism establishment says, “Unless you do news the way we do it, it’s not news.” I think that’s stupid.

How is Vice going to cover, say, monetary policy? That’s a good question. We’re not going to cover monetary policy. For us, we embed with Occupy Wall Street, the communists, the young people.

What do you think of the criticism of the first season of “Vice” on HBO? The criticism I thought was funny was about us taking Dennis Rodman to North Korea. They were damning the show before they had seen it, calling us stunt journalists. Meanwhile, the BBC tried to sneak into North Korea using students as cover.

Before the first season aired, you told Charlie Rose that you had an interview with Kim Jong-un, but it never materialized. What happened? We did interview him, but we didn’t get it on camera. We had a three-hour dinner with the guy, but we weren’t allowed to bring anything in. You couldn’t bring keys in, you couldn’t bring credit cards. We were supposed to get the footage from the North Korean television agency, but they didn’t give it to us.

Rodman has since gone back to North Korea without Vice. Do you feel as if you’ve unleashed a monster? Rodman went for three days. We were there for 10 days to shoot. Have we unleashed a monster? Probably. The guy has a well-documented alcohol problem, and I hope he gets better. I mean, we knew that they loved the Bulls, but most of the Bulls didn’t want to go.
Continue reading the main story
Recent Comments
gtodon
25 March 2014

Heaven help us if Shane Smith represents the future of journalism. Just listen to him: "Look, economic disparity is bad. But we’ve already...
KK
24 March 2014

This just reflects the sad trend of dumbing down news. The sadder truth is that there are viewers who actually demand this type of content....
Ted Pikul
23 March 2014

Good lord. Land-speed record for throwing co-conspirator Rodman under the bus - complete with ad hominem attack.Vice was a guilty pleasure...

Did you ask Michael Jordan or Scottie Pippen?
Yeah, Jordan and Pippen. They said no.

You believe that young people worldwide are disenfranchised. Do you think popular uprisings will fix things? No. I’m actually worried, because I believe that it’s going to get worse. Look, economic disparity is bad. But we’ve already tried having governments redistribute wealth. We tried it in Russia and China to disastrous effect.

News Corp. bought a 5 percent stake in Vice, and now James Murdoch is on the board. Why did you sell to them? I’ve said that I want to be the next MTV, the next CNN, the next ESPN. Cue everyone rolling their eyes. MTV went to Viacom, ESPN went to Disney and Hearst, CNN went to Time Warner. Why? Because to build a global media brand, it’s almost impossible to do it alone. James has been involved in one of the largest media companies in the world since he was in short pants.

Do you ever fear that Vice will become legacy media itself? It’s our time now. Then, I don’t know, it’ll be holograms next, and some kid will come up and eat our lunch.

Interview From New York Magazine
 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/magazine/vice-shane-smith.html

Picture of Steven Smith Vice Founder with Qatari Army Officer and Al_Qaeda Fighters in Libya in 2011

Anonymous CentCom

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech