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Vice Media to Reorganize, Lay Off 10 Percent of Staff

hollywoodreporter.com

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Re: Vice Media to Reorganize, Lay Off 10 Percent of Staff

#11

Post by creaghpatr »

hahla wrote: post #9
creaghpatr wrote: post #7

I wonder if the Buzzfeed/Vice/Huffington Post layoffs are related to the appropriations of the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act running out. The US government was subsidizing certain organizations to counter fake news to the tune of $20M. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Countering_F...

How do you keep abreast of these sort of appropriations that are passed?

I'm not sure, does anyone know? I'm guessing the appointed chairman referenced in the bill would be responsible for issuing grants and organizations would have had to apply. Maybe through a FOIA?

Re: Vice Media to Reorganize, Lay Off 10 Percent of Staff

#12

Post by CzechTech »

creaghpatr wrote: post #8
creaghpatr wrote: post #7

I wonder if the Buzzfeed/Vice/Huffington Post layoffs are related to the appropriations of the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act running out. The US government was subsidizing certain organizations to counter fake news to the tune of $20M. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Countering_F...

Section 1B seems especially pertinent to beats like (until recently) Buzzfeed's Charlie Warzel's who spent most of his research tracking far-right propaganda on YouTube and 4chan.

More like anti far-left memesters.

Re: Vice Media to Reorganize, Lay Off 10 Percent of Staff

#13

Post by oftenwrong »

hahla wrote: post #9
creaghpatr wrote: post #7

I wonder if the Buzzfeed/Vice/Huffington Post layoffs are related to the appropriations of the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act running out. The US government was subsidizing certain organizations to counter fake news to the tune of $20M. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Countering_F...

How do you keep abreast of these sort of appropriations that are passed?

https://congress.gov/resources/display/content/Appropriation...

Also you can get notifications of updates via email or RSS:

https://updates.loc.gov/accounts/USLOC/subscriber/new?topic_...

https://www.congress.gov/rss/appropriations.xml

Re: Vice Media to Reorganize, Lay Off 10 Percent of Staff

#14

Post by Reedx »

IIRC, I was introduced to Vice with their fascinating coverage of North Korea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24R8JObNNQ4 (first trip - Shane Smith was banned from the country as a result)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrCQh1usdzE (second trip years later, where they got in under the guise of a Basketball game)

Unfortunately it's been increasingly hit or miss ever since and now their process seems to be along these lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw5UzBjgCiI

Also, how is it that so many of these media companies are having layoffs at almost exactly the same time? You'd think it'd be more scattered...

Re: Vice Media to Reorganize, Lay Off 10 Percent of Staff

#15

Post by 52-6F-62 »

gcb0 wrote: post #6
nopriorarrests wrote: post #4

Verizon media (aka huffpost, techcrunch and others), Buzzfeed, and now Vice. The beat goes on.

your list just show the yearly churn of the news-repost industry (i.e. companies that have zero investigative journalism, needs fresh people to get fresh news sources to repost) vice (not the site) and buzzfeed news (not regular buzzfeed) are a new beatst in the news industry. they sell tailored pieces (pretty much an improved model that wired used to reborn in the 2000s). for example vice got a huge account promotin…

Can you back this up? Vice has put out some surprisingly good field journalism pieces. And Buzzfeed News has produced Pulizter-nominated journalism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRuSS0iiFyo "VICE: The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia"

https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/staff-buzzfeed-news

Re: Vice Media to Reorganize, Lay Off 10 Percent of Staff

#17

Post by noer »

prepend wrote: post #2

It’s surprising that there are 2500 staff at vice. I thought they mostly used freelancers.

Purely Conjecture:

A friend works there as a video editor and they work exclusively on the weekly show, which kind of leads me to believe that they probably have teams allocated to a single property. I also know they'll work on one episode for a couple of weeks, so they have separate teams of people working on separate episodes at once.

Edit: my friend was a freelancer there for a few years before they were hired

Re: Vice Media to Reorganize, Lay Off 10 Percent of Staff

#18

Post by 52-6F-62 »

Reedx wrote: post #14

IIRC, I was introduced to Vice with their fascinating coverage of North Korea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24R8JObNNQ4 (first trip - Shane Smith was banned from the country as a result) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrCQh1usdzE (second trip years later, where they got in under the guise of a Basketball game) Unfortunately it's been increasingly hit or miss ever since and now their process seems to be along thes…

It's happening in Canada as well.

They're just not making enough money. They're making money, but not enough. There's a large drive to produce more with less, and to reboot.

Journalism, especially good journalism, is expensive. Expensive to execute, and expensive to produce.

And everybody wants it for free now.

Re: Vice Media to Reorganize, Lay Off 10 Percent of Staff

#19

Post by tru3_power »

gcb0 wrote: post #6
nopriorarrests wrote: post #4

Verizon media (aka huffpost, techcrunch and others), Buzzfeed, and now Vice. The beat goes on.

your list just show the yearly churn of the news-repost industry (i.e. companies that have zero investigative journalism, needs fresh people to get fresh news sources to repost) vice (not the site) and buzzfeed news (not regular buzzfeed) are a new beatst in the news industry. they sell tailored pieces (pretty much an improved model that wired used to reborn in the 2000s). for example vice got a huge account promotin…

Sorry I’m a little confused- are you basically saying Vice will tailor make you a edgy documentary about whatever you want if you pay them enough?

Re: Vice Media to Reorganize, Lay Off 10 Percent of Staff

#20

Post by danso »

creaghpatr wrote: post #7

I wonder if the Buzzfeed/Vice/Huffington Post layoffs are related to the appropriations of the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act running out. The US government was subsidizing certain organizations to counter fake news to the tune of $20M. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Countering_F...

If I'm not mistaken, that money came under controversy because it was allocated but never spent: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/world/europe/state-depart...

So how could it be related to any hiring or layoff trends in the media industry? And that's assuming this money was allowed to be used as direct subsidy to non-government news outlets.

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