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A very tough year for the journalism industry is set to get even worse by next week. Vice Media, which filed for bankruptcy last year before being handed over to a coalition of creditors led by Fortress Investment Group for $350 million, has slashed 900 employees and cut “hundreds of positions.” “We will,” the company’s CEO said at the time. Trooper Bruce Dixon said in an email to staff Thursday night.
The breakup of Vice Media means the company will move to a “studio-first model” and “no longer publish content on vice.com” and will instead “focus on social channels,” Dixon said. continued. We need to talk to our partners to get our content where it’s most widely viewed. ”
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Dixon declined to provide specific strategies for how brands can maintain their journalism by publishing content on crowded social channels. And Mr. Dixon’s assertion that he would “consider partnering with existing media companies for distribution” also comes as far too many existing media companies have already scaled back their own production in light of industry-shaking layoffs. Now that it’s been drastically cut back, Vice’s digital content sounds like a baffling word salad. Year.
Reading between the lines, it might seem that the new Vice is no longer a journalistic entity. Instead, the company will “focus on growing its intercompany media division, which includes production studios and creative agencies,” according to people familiar with the restructuring who spoke to The Wall Street Journal. That means Vice Media will essentially be repositioned as a branded content studio, even if it retains its former reputation.
Rumors are also rife within Vice that years’ worth of articles written by the website and actual journalists will be preserved or simply deleted. Meanwhile, Fortress will continue unloading Refinery29, which Vice Media acquired in 2019 for $400 million.
Even considering the recent decline of the once mighty renegade media company, Thursday’s revelations come as a shocking final act defined by greed and gross mismanagement.
With a one-time valuation of $5.7 billion and investors including the Murdoch family and Bob Iger, Vice Media began trying in 2023 to find a buyer for the increasingly shrinking and mismanaged company. No takers emerged, and by May 2023, the company had filed for bankruptcy. However, as disclosed in publicly available bankruptcy filings, Chief Operating Officer Corey Huyck, President of News and Entertainment Jesse Angelo, Chief Human Resources Officer Daisy Auger Dominguez, The company’s top executives, including executive vice president Subrata De, were paid hefty six-figure salaries as chief executives. The company was getting tough on freelancers and firing underpaid journalists. Documents show that Angelo, a former top editor at the New York Post and roommate of James Murdoch at Harvard University, received nearly $1 million in compensation in 2022, just months before filing for bankruptcy. He reportedly received a $135,000 bonus. Mr. De was paid $779,000 during the same period. She is still with Vice Media, and on Wednesday she touted on her LinkedIn page that she had won the George Polk Award for her Vice News reporting on Russia’s brutal Wagner mercenaries.
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