That's ad hominem, not a counter argument about Vice's content.
> They were rich nepo kids going into places and doing a ton of poverty porn. Seeing the inside of a favela on the eyes of a brooklyn kids whose dad makes pharma patents was edgy in 2000s but boy does it not hold up.
Yes, so? This description is good journalism. You're just trying to come up with derogatory terms to describe it, while there's nothing wrong with any of that.
1. Saying a person founded a group is not an attack, insulting them is.
2. The relationship between a vaccine stance and an environmental stance is weak, if existent at all. The relationship of a political advocacy group and a media outlet is pretty strong - that is "i have something to say and the tools to say it loudly and widely" is a common pattern among those with the means (religions, wealthy folks, political fringe groups, etc). It's not ad-hominem to say "this new MLM Bernie Madoff is promoting is very similar to the ponzi scheme he was previously convicted of" either.
3. It's not ad-hominem to declare that a persons actions are consistent with their stated goals - it's not an attack, nor is it an attempt at discrediting (or supporting) their position. It is ad-hominem to say "unrelated opinions about vaccines discredit this environmental opinion".
Pointing out overt political activism by the founders is pretty important context when discussing the "apolitical" nature of their ventures.
> Yes, so?
Edgy != good. The journalistic value of interviewing a "cartel" member with 0 verifcation, sources or journalistic codes is not good journalism. It is just titilating porn for middle class people. The person being interviewed might just be a kid with a mask, an airsoft gun talking about how much heroin he sells and how many people he tortures.
Or worse, they might actually be in a cartel and try to impress the kid with the camera and shoot someone to shock them. (Something close to this happened while they filmed cartel members doing coke at a bar in mexico). Absolutely no journalism happened that night.
> while there's nothing wrong with any of that.
Shitting all over the word journalism, ignoring lessons learned by countless of better, braver, more talented men and women and going for shock over reality is all pretty good reasons.
I only used buzzwords because I think the naivete of rich kids pretending to be journalists being exploited for profit by a company founded by a wannabe neonazi is too obvious to have to spell out.
Yes, interviewing a faceless "cartel" member with zero verification would be poor journalism, which isn't the same as bringing a camera into XYZ location and recording/describing the conditions, which classifies as journalism in the same way that war journalists who go into warzones and describe situations are journalists.
I think ironically enough your personal feelings regarding the founders of Vice are coloring your perspective on their earlier work which meets the textbook definition of journalism.
A similar thing happened to the Tea Party which was anti-1%'res which is now controlled by their corporate donors. It's new name is the House Freedom Caucus and they want to default on US debt.
The main thing I remember about it (which may still be true today) is it was the only daily TV source of relatively unbiased reporting that includes world issues and isn't 100% focused on reporting within the USA.
One of the founders founded the proud boys.
>They went to interesting, dangerous places and reported what they saw by showing you what they saw.
They were rich nepo kids going into places and doing a ton of poverty porn. Seeing the inside of a favela on the eyes of a brooklyn kids whose dad makes pharma patents was edgy in 2000s but boy does it not hold up.
> All new Vice productions are deeply and uniformly opinionated.
Same as ever, nepo babies think they know everything. If you go back you see plenty of it in their early stuff too. You were just younger and noticed it less.
> this later work received no significant attention and generated no revenue.
By 2012 they had already completely sold out when they sold the mag to i-D and still where making massive numbers.
They are being sold now for 225 million despite their bankruptcy.
> There is political groupthink in reporting ruinous to the bottom line.
Fox News is the most overt political entertainment network in the planet and also the most profitable. Seems like your theory is entirely at odds with reality and your rose tinted glasses of gonzo Vice is mostly ignoring the actual content of the magazine.