News Media

I am not a fan of VICE Media. There is something about the organization that has always rubbed me the wrong way. It’s like they want to be the more adult Buzzfeed, but what they come across to me is a Dan Cortese BK Tee-Vee commercial from the 90’s. Now, I do fully admit that they do get it right when it comes to their reporting, especially in regard to how they covered all the Charlottesville violence. I might not like the package it’s in, but it is a solid product.

I bring all of this up for a good reason, and it’s that I think news media will start to function more in the VICE model. Not in the sense that traditional media will hire a bunch of millennials with weird glasses and bad haircuts… I think traditional media will start to be more of a combination of print, video and social. Diversifying their reach.

The New York Times has started to do this with some of their feature reporting. Their story, “Deliverance From 27,000 Feet” is a piece that has to be read online to get the full impact of the videos, photographs and images. The use of all these different forms of media, enhanced the reporting when it came to this specific story, and I think it is only a matter of time before more newspapers start moving in this direction.

Furthermore, to take this all back to VICE again, as they now have their own cable network, VICELAND, this is what traditional media will end at; just becoming all-encompassing media companies. Though focused on news, I would not be surprised if The New York Times soon start their own cable channel with 24-hour news, and programming, which is all tied together in a social media way with the newspaper and the website.