Vice Media organised $20M Saudi government festival
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
> The event promised to bring together the best of eastern culture (it took place among ancient carvings at the world heritage site of Al-’Ula on a historic trade route) with the best of western culture (it featured a performance from the dance duo Chainsmokers).
This is like Ghandi's reply:
"What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"It would be a very good idea."
2. Also, he's kind of like Mark Twain or Albert Einstein in that lots of quotes are attributed to him that he might not have actually said, and this might be one of them:
https://www.reddit.com/r/quotes/comments/1lbplg/gandhi_was_a...
It's unsatisfying to score points on Vice (or anyone really), but as a sample, I'd wonder if this larger question would benefit from being aired. Are we post-integrity?
Afterwards Anderson mentioned the required style of reporting at Vice negatively (the camera focusing on his reactions) but he stayed with them for a while. Not sure if he is still associated with them.
edit: Fixed timestamp & He left vice last year https://twitter.com/benjohnanderson/status/14273137210435215...
The argument, as I remember it, asserted that journalism is a semi-profession because journalists are expected to adhere to ethical principles widely practiced by reporters (e.g. fairness, accuracy, ethics). However, it's not a profession on the same level as physicians or lawyers because they don't require licenses or credentials (whether this is a good or bad aspect is up for debate, but it's a description of the way the field currently works).
Since the code of ethics aren't widely agreed upon (different unions of journalists and different newspaper publications have slightly different codes of ethics), there is a loss of professionalism in an academic sense (versus lawyers and physicians where the ethical codes are more standardized and may have legal or at least stronger moral binding). However, this does elevate journalism above a non-profession, as there are still ethical principles widely agreed with among credible journalists (e.g. if a source tells you information off-the-record, you protect their identity, even if threatened with imprisonment or personal harm).
As far as I can tell only if the journalist/activist is a member of an opposing political ideology. If they are on "our side" we tolerate almost anything because you know the other side is nazis or communists.
An example were David Sirota's International Business Times articles Clinton[1] and Trump[2].
While head of the state department (which runs weapons deals), Clinton approved arms deals to controversial countries after they donated to the Clinton Foundation. This reporting was widely attacked online, often by other journalists. The article was very detailed and well documented.
Later he wrote another equally detailed article about how Trump ripped off investors through chicanery and the article was widely applauded by the same audience.
It was the same journalist doing the same level of investigation with the same rigor, treated completely differently by the same audience. In both cases it seems like the popular reception was not based on facts at all, in either direction! The reaction was largely based on which 'team' it supported.
1- https://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapon...
2- https://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/how-donald-trump-u...
Care to provide examples of "same audience", aka same people and organisations criticising one and applauding the other? I can easily see how some extremely biased "entertainment news" talk show hosts might do it, but I'm doubtful of actual journalist doing that.
We have been for a long time
Were we ever? What do you mean by "holding"? How does one hold any given media outlet or journalist to any standard?
> Gen. Singlaub started the U.S. Council for World Freedom, an affiliate of the World Anti-Communist League. Later, as president of the international organization, he made what the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith called “substantial progress” in purging the group of neo-Nazis, antisemites and Latin American death-squad leaders.
> ...
> In the early 1980s, as Congress began curtailing U.S. funding of efforts to overthrow leftist regimes in Nicaragua and elsewhere, Gen. Singlaub and his organizations remained an important conduit of materiel and financial assistance, reportedly with the help of deep-pocketed conservatives and foreign governments.
> He was often compared to Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North and other major figures in the Reagan administration’s Iran-contra affair. North was among the national security officials who had authorized illegal arms sales to Iran to win the release of U.S. hostages in the Middle East and used some of the profits to support right-wing Nicaraguan rebels known as the contras.
The same man being applauded for purging death squad leaders from an organization and for funding death squad leaders.
The writer isn't celebrating that he funded the contras, but is instead reporting how he was perceived by the American political class, and also mention key controversies he was involved with. The mention of his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair is an example of responsible reporting; in contrast, an irresponsible writer would have omitted the topic, and you would have never read it.
Are we post-integrity?
I would argue when it comes to corporate decision making, making money has always come first ahead of integrity, and it's a little naive to consider this the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Here, read the fucking article
Yes champ, we read the article
Say what you will of the quality of their journalism, but at the end of the day, a journalistic organization is openly courting a regime that lured a journalist to his death under false pretenses, and then hacked his body into pieces, cooked the pieces of his body in a firepit, and forced his family to attend kangaroo court to witness pawns being scapegoated for Mohammed bin Salman.
Vice, US legislators, and most importantly, Mohammed bin Salman himself need to realize that we're not going to forget the despicable and disgusting human-being that Mohammed bin Salman is, and that any institutions that deal with him are guilty by association.
But we definitely are, or rather clearly already have, so I'm not sure what repeating declarations like this does other than "virtue signal." If you work for a company that takes Saudi money, are you ready to quit, even knowing that no one will care?
Turns out that genocides, massacres, concentration camps, slavery and co are something that the West will gladly overlook because ultimately everybody's got a mortgage to pay, and the tedious moral grandstanding is nothing but empty PR. Nobody gives a shit, you just can't say that out loud. You need to make sure to Tweet your support for the right cause, and then go back to climbing your local power ladder of choice 30 seconds after hitting post.
I realize this sounds cynical, but I don't think there's much evidence to support a more optimistic outlook, at least as far as geopolitics go.
Do you only hold beliefs that you think people will care about? Are your principles founded on whether or not stating them will be perceived as "virtue signaling"?
edit: to answer your question about my principles, they involve not inflating the importance of the dismembering of a journalist by a despot against the similar or worse, less publicized evils of other funding sources. Khashoggi isn't my issue. I cared about 100x more about the women who did the driving protests who were jailed after the Saudis loosened up laws against women driving. I cared about that while the paper that employed Khashoggi was doing intense PR on behalf of MBS in every issue.
> The punchline emerges from the complacent who will allow it to happen, while patting themselves on the back for how "pragmatic" they are - not from the "armchair outrage".
It appears you have no issue reaching your back.
Fair bit of warning, some quotes from his Wikipedia page are disturbing, to say the least. Keep in mind that he probably still has shares in Vice so watching their content lines up his pockets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_Media
Owner Vice Media
Shane Smith (20%)
The Walt Disney Company (16%)
A&E Networks (20%)
TPG Capital (44%)
Soros Fund Management (10%)
James Murdoch (minority stake)The Guardian's competitor also has operations in the US which supplies the Saudis weapons in exchange for oil denominated in USD. The US jails journalists such as Assange. So let's not be hypocritical.
Vice has always been kind of this level of head-up-ass fake.
The Western business model is espousing a stance separable from genuine outrage towards a particular belief. It works. Everyone that matters gets that.
The faux outrage here is only because Vice publicly espoused a stance, so its an article hoping for hypocrisy to be news. Vice didn't have business there for 3 years after they made that stance, did they ever say it would be permanent? It is an easy standard to rationalize compliance with.
The Guardian asked for a comment and actually got it! Vice was available for comment! Vice didn't even know what the issue was and just responded with accuracy "We opened a commercial and creative office in Riyadh earlier this year", lol.
The article could just as easily be fishing for controversy with the Chainsmokers for performing "in a regime that commits human rights abuses". A swing and a miss, Guardian!
Why would we expect private companies to be more strict than them?
It's a bald-faced hustle and always has been.
Or like the athletes which talk "courageously" about rampant islamophobia in their Western countries, while being signed for multi-million ad contracts for "bravely speaking truth to power", but which are mum while at the Beijing Olympics about the actual genocide against Muslims happening in China.