"There was certainly an air of excess when I was working there, one that felt like an extension of our twenty-something social lives - and that sometimes included cocaine." The final straw for staffers was a series of "panic" meetings instigated by former CEO, Nancy Dubuc (Photo by Brad Barket/Getty Images for Fast Company)ĭubuc is credited with taking steps to erase a "bro culture" which came to light with sexual malpractice allegations by female staff after the #MeToo campaign. "Looking back on it now, the amount of talent assembled under one roof was astonishing," said one former staffer, who admits it was a wild ride for its young team. Its popular Refinery29 website aimed at young women is likely to be among assets rescued. Vice News won a slew of Emmys last year including for its "Yemen: The Forgotten War" report and an investigation into scandalous conditions inside nursing homes. It tried to poach staff," the insider continued. The BBC said Vice was the model it had to follow to engage young viewers in news. "It was doing very serious public service journalism. How does Vice compete with TikTok and Insta? That's where your audience has gone."Įx-staffers speak with affection for the Vice Media they joined. "The problem was the way the business was managed, and the media landscape changed very quickly. Parts of the business were reaching that audience effectively," the insider said. "She was right to say the future of the company was Gen Z. The business seemed to be flying by the seat of its pants."ĭubuc set up a task group of Vice figures to answer the question, "How do we get to Gen Z?" i understands. "There were always rounds of redundancies. "Dubuc sent emails saying the company needed to turn a profit. "Executives said Vice's brands had to be 'too big to fail.' Parts of the business were making money and are still getting big audiences," an insider said. Smith's boast that he spent $380,000 (plus tip) on a Vice dinner in Los Angeles became a sick joke among staff. "People were asking, 'How can there be no money?' They were not even able to pay their freelancers."Ĭreated as a punk magazine in Montreal in 1994, Vice won millions of views for its reports from danger zones like North Korea, where conventional media feared to tread.Įxpanding into a movie studio and an ad agency, Smith taunted "old media" companies, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars of investment from Disney and Fox, dazzled by the brash entrepreneur with a hotline to a youth market they couldn't access.īut investors grew wary of Vice's inability to turn traffic into profit as the digital advertising market slumped and TikTok swept up a new generation of social media users. "It became completely chaotic," claimed one. Recent reports that Vice is headed for bankruptcy, with the company seeking buyers for its assets, didn't surprise former staff. It was a far cry from the early days when Vice founder, Shane Smith, had claimed to have found the magic elixir to reel Gen Z in. The final straw for staffers was a series of "panic" meetings instigated by former CEO, Nancy Dubuc, designed to find ways of keeping hold of the Gen Z youth audience. But Vice Media was headed for a meltdown with insiders revealing that a "too big to fail" mantra led to "complete chaos" as the global brand, which once dazzled Disney and Rupert Murdoch, was left unable to pay its freelancers. It was the hipster digital upstart, valued at $5.7bn (£4.5bn) with its reports from the sex and drug subculture front line. 'Too big to fail' mindset leaves news site on precipice.
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