The hipsters at Vice.TV produce original video reporting–which sways between brilliant and annoying. They’ve also become more important now that CNN has signed a deal with them to put Vice content on CNN’s platforms.
About being brilliant or annoying or both at the same time, go check out their most recent “report” on Liberia which you can watch in 8 parts at their website.
I have tried not to say something anything about the Liberia episode since I first saw it online last month. Some other US based blogs heavy on African content have: like Yale political scientist, Chris Blattman and Journey Without Maps (they both hated it), or My Heart’s in Accra (he swings both ways as well as Scarlett Lion (she can’t see it in Liberia; slow internet), to name a few.
My comment is short: All I can say is if you’re going to check out a substantive piece of writing or video on recent developments in Liberia, I’d rather read the two-part “Letter from Liberia” by Zadie Smith (no relation to Vice’s Shane Smith).
Please don’t let these guys near Congo.
Vice is terrible & fond of subtle & overt racism and othering. Disappointed in CNN. I couldn’t even finish the first episode. “Dangerous” and “weird” destinations? ACKKKK
Of course, the NY Times has a story about VBS.TV’s CNN deal today:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/business/media/15carr.html]
I assume you would rather crawl under a rock rather than look at the real truth behind western African history. With any journalism piece there is always a bit of embellishment. However, Vice has been the only source that says,”We don’t care about what people will think with our journalism, we are going to report it as we see it in real life. The cannibalism, the brutal slaying of innocent people, the recruiting of children to wage war, the lure of trafficking blood diamonds from Sierra Leone. Did these things not happen, do they still not go on today, or ready to happen again at the next spark of a conflict? It becomes too comfortable to sit back and endorse journalism that only pleases our senses. The primary thing you forgot to mention was, (I believe) that Shane Smith was truly changed when he encountered Joshua Blahyi. This portrays the bests hope for a nation attempting to heal from it’s past, from the worst of people.