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Comcast-Owned Vox Runs Commercial for Comcast’s $500M Snapchat Investment

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Re: Comcast-Owned Vox Runs Commercial for Comcast’s $500M Snapchat Investment

#41

Post by maehwasu »

_mhyx wrote: post #7

Does anyone else deeply distrust Vox? The quality varies a LOT, they frequently present opinions as facts, etc. The weird thing is they have moments of brilliance like the "Liberal Smugness" piece - but search "Vox News article" and it looks like even the left really hates them. They seem more interested in telling me how to feel than the facts, I guess. I wish the rest of the world had the same pride in journalism a…

All Vox articles:

"Why X Thing That a Mainstream Democrat Did That Seems Like a Big Problem Is Actually Not a Big Problem"

"Why X Thing That Person Who Is Not a Mainstream Democrat Did That Seems Innocuous Is Actually the Most Problematic Thing Ever"

Re: Comcast-Owned Vox Runs Commercial for Comcast’s $500M Snapchat Investment

#42

Post by james-mcelwain »

BadassFractal wrote: post #31
Dirlewanger wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vox and all its sibling outlets (Polygon, the Verge, etc.) have devolved into poison. They've surpassed Mother Jones as the Internet's premiere outraged bleeding liberal rag. Their headlines are physically painful to read. They are unabashed smug coastal liberalism. Their videos are consistently high quality though. I'll go there probably once a month and watch a handful.

Liberalism or leftism? A lot of the modern trends you see from the left actually feel very illiberal.

Vox is most certainly a liberal outpost. You're correct that many elements of the left reject liberalism, which is why Vox et al. are center-left liberal rags and not "leftist."

Re: Comcast-Owned Vox Runs Commercial for Comcast’s $500M Snapchat Investment

#43

Post by RodericDay »

_mhyx wrote: post #7

Does anyone else deeply distrust Vox? The quality varies a LOT, they frequently present opinions as facts, etc. The weird thing is they have moments of brilliance like the "Liberal Smugness" piece - but search "Vox News article" and it looks like even the left really hates them. They seem more interested in telling me how to feel than the facts, I guess. I wish the rest of the world had the same pride in journalism a…

Emmett Rensin is the author of that piece, and he's an incredibly talented commentator and rising star. Now that he's building some credibility, he can be a bit pickier about where he publishes.

I happened to be plugging him just yesterday on a discussion about the Obama administration on here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13791139

If you want pieces like that "Liberal Smugness" one, I strongly recommend Current Affairs magazine, and Jacobin (but Jacobin is more hit or miss). Current Affairs is pointedly against Vox.com, and has a piece explaining their opposition to it here:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/11/explaining-it-all

Re: Comcast-Owned Vox Runs Commercial for Comcast’s $500M Snapchat Investment

#44

Post by 013a »

dstaley wrote: post #19

I totally think that when a Vox Media publication writes about Comcast that they should disclose the fact that Comcast Ventures owns a minority stake in Vox Media. However, I think it's a bit ridiculous to expect them to disclose this every time they cover one of their investor's portfolio companies. According to Crunchbase [1], there are 1,124 companies that share at least one investor with Vox Media. That's a prett…

Yeah, that's asking a lot of journalists. We all know that writing high quality pieces is what Vox is famous for, I guess they just can't be expected to have the time to put something like "journalistic integrity" or "proper research" into what they write.

Re: Comcast-Owned Vox Runs Commercial for Comcast’s $500M Snapchat Investment

#45

Post by cmdrfred »

pkill17 wrote: post #11
swampthinker wrote: post #2

Which is strange, as Vox and it's child companies usually do a good job of disclosing things like this.

There was another example in this very article of them writing a glowing defense of Comcast, which they neglected to put a disclaimer on until a large outcry caught up with them. Where are you getting your opinion that they "usually do a good job of disclosing things"?

I think the problem is a lot of people go "I agree with essentially everything this newspaper puts out, thus this is great journalism!" when really good journalism would likely have you disagreeing with it as much as you agree.

Re: Comcast-Owned Vox Runs Commercial for Comcast’s $500M Snapchat Investment

#46

Post by germinalphrase »

_mhyx wrote: post #7

Does anyone else deeply distrust Vox? The quality varies a LOT, they frequently present opinions as facts, etc. The weird thing is they have moments of brilliance like the "Liberal Smugness" piece - but search "Vox News article" and it looks like even the left really hates them. They seem more interested in telling me how to feel than the facts, I guess. I wish the rest of the world had the same pride in journalism a…

Your read is generally correct. When Vix started their explicit mission was to focus on analysis rather than reporting. They figure (correctly, it seems) that people don't really want new facts so much as they want to know if/how/why these facts matter.

Edit: word salad

Re: Comcast-Owned Vox Runs Commercial for Comcast’s $500M Snapchat Investment

#47

Post by madeofpalk »

pkill17 wrote: post #11
swampthinker wrote: post #2

Which is strange, as Vox and it's child companies usually do a good job of disclosing things like this.

There was another example in this very article of them writing a glowing defense of Comcast, which they neglected to put a disclaimer on until a large outcry caught up with them. Where are you getting your opinion that they "usually do a good job of disclosing things"?

The Verge very often does, like in "The Worst Company In America"[1], there's a disclaimer. I listen to their podcast and whenever Comcast comes up (and always highly critical of the company) they recite the disclaimer before making fun of them for investing in them.

But, this article http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/2/14488212/comcast-protest-tr... from Feb 2 has a disclaimer down the bottom, but then this one Feb 8 doesn't http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/8/14554354/comcast-fastest-in...

[1]: http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/19/6004131/comcast-the-worst-...

Re: Comcast-Owned Vox Runs Commercial for Comcast’s $500M Snapchat Investment

#48

Post by uncletaco »

BadassFractal wrote: post #31
Dirlewanger wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vox and all its sibling outlets (Polygon, the Verge, etc.) have devolved into poison. They've surpassed Mother Jones as the Internet's premiere outraged bleeding liberal rag. Their headlines are physically painful to read. They are unabashed smug coastal liberalism. Their videos are consistently high quality though. I'll go there probably once a month and watch a handful.

Liberalism or leftism? A lot of the modern trends you see from the left actually feel very illiberal.

Leftist ideology is not mutually inclusive of liberalism (in the philosophical sense) but that's true of most ideologies. Heck, mix nationalism (extreme patriotism) with socialism (illiberal leftist ideology) and you can get national socialism (far-right Nazism).

Re: Comcast-Owned Vox Runs Commercial for Comcast’s $500M Snapchat Investment

#49

Post by uncletaco »

thedarkginger wrote: post #29
OedipusRex wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that Vox is closer to MSM than it's viewer's would like to believe. They're fact-lite and heavy on opinion; every party has 'em. That being said I watch everything they put out on YouTube. Some of it's really good.

This assessment feels accurate. Just tried to think of any digital-first journalism outlet in the U.S. that is focused on doing independent reporting rather than "telling people how to feel." Came up empty. That feels true on both the conservative and liberal sides too. Opinion isn't intrinsically bad, but it makes me nervous that the CPM ad-based revenue model definitely incentivizes this type of 'newsroom.'

Have you looked into ProPublica or The Marshall Project? They're non-profits who focus on investigative reporting. ProPublica is general news but The Marshall Project focuses exclusively on the US's criminal justice system.

Re: Comcast-Owned Vox Runs Commercial for Comcast’s $500M Snapchat Investment

#50

Post by uncletaco »

Apocryphon wrote: post #34
_mhyx wrote: post #7

Does anyone else deeply distrust Vox? The quality varies a LOT, they frequently present opinions as facts, etc. The weird thing is they have moments of brilliance like the "Liberal Smugness" piece - but search "Vox News article" and it looks like even the left really hates them. They seem more interested in telling me how to feel than the facts, I guess. I wish the rest of the world had the same pride in journalism a…

How does Politico compare to Vox in terms of that liberal skew?

Politico is more oriented towards hill gossip for politics junkies than news.
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