That's ad hominem, not a counter argument about Vice's content.
> They were rich nepo kids going into places and doing a ton of poverty porn. Seeing the inside of a favela on the eyes of a brooklyn kids whose dad makes pharma patents was edgy in 2000s but boy does it not hold up.
Yes, so? This description is good journalism. You're just trying to come up with derogatory terms to describe it, while there's nothing wrong with any of that.
Pointing out overt political activism by the founders is pretty important context when discussing the "apolitical" nature of their ventures.
> Yes, so?
Edgy != good. The journalistic value of interviewing a "cartel" member with 0 verifcation, sources or journalistic codes is not good journalism. It is just titilating porn for middle class people. The person being interviewed might just be a kid with a mask, an airsoft gun talking about how much heroin he sells and how many people he tortures.
Or worse, they might actually be in a cartel and try to impress the kid with the camera and shoot someone to shock them. (Something close to this happened while they filmed cartel members doing coke at a bar in mexico). Absolutely no journalism happened that night.
> while there's nothing wrong with any of that.
Shitting all over the word journalism, ignoring lessons learned by countless of better, braver, more talented men and women and going for shock over reality is all pretty good reasons.
I only used buzzwords because I think the naivete of rich kids pretending to be journalists being exploited for profit by a company founded by a wannabe neonazi is too obvious to have to spell out.
Yes, interviewing a faceless "cartel" member with zero verification would be poor journalism, which isn't the same as bringing a camera into XYZ location and recording/describing the conditions, which classifies as journalism in the same way that war journalists who go into warzones and describe situations are journalists.
I think ironically enough your personal feelings regarding the founders of Vice are coloring your perspective on their earlier work which meets the textbook definition of journalism.
1. Saying a person founded a group is not an attack, insulting them is.
2. The relationship between a vaccine stance and an environmental stance is weak, if existent at all. The relationship of a political advocacy group and a media outlet is pretty strong - that is "i have something to say and the tools to say it loudly and widely" is a common pattern among those with the means (religions, wealthy folks, political fringe groups, etc). It's not ad-hominem to say "this new MLM Bernie Madoff is promoting is very similar to the ponzi scheme he was previously convicted of" either.
3. It's not ad-hominem to declare that a persons actions are consistent with their stated goals - it's not an attack, nor is it an attempt at discrediting (or supporting) their position. It is ad-hominem to say "unrelated opinions about vaccines discredit this environmental opinion".