Vice News<\/a>.<\/p>\nFinally, here\u2019s a news outlet suited to my Gemini personality: multi-faceted, ambiguous, sometimes uncomfortably complex, questioning, exploratory, curious about anything and everything. Vice video and print reporters put you right on the scene. They give you the real deal. They\u2019re never lazy.\u00a0 Not for them the easy clich\u00e9s or sound bites that let you wrap yourself up in cozy familiarity. The intent is just the opposite. The diverse gang at Vice wants us to get really un<\/i>comfortable. They want us to squirm with the reality of what they\u2019re showing us. How else, their reporting implies, can they encourage us to question our assumptions?<\/p>\n
Although Vice targets a demographic I\u2019m decades past, this is reporting I can relate to. The selection of topics wildly ricochets between the facile and the deadly serious. Some of the reporting takes on hot-button issues. Some is nothing more than dessert material. Story lines are quirky and idiosyncratic. At its best, the reporting can be downright revelatory.<\/p>\n
An add-on value to Vice is that if you\u2019ve ever found yourself waking up in the middle of the night wondering \u201cwhat interests millennials right now?\u201d this is the source that will give you the answer.<\/p>\n
Founded in Montreal in 1994 as a government-sponsored community magazine, Vice Media (of which Vice News is just one division) is now headquartered in Brooklyn. Although Vice now has 35 offices in 18 countries, its roots in one of the world\u2019s trendiest hipster destinations go deep. The company could easily display a byline declaring, Williamsburg Meets the World. And that world, if you\u2019re willing to jump on the ride with Vice, turns out to be a fascinatingly complex, multicultural whirlwind.<\/p>\n
Unlike old media, Vice News doesn\u2019t spoon feed its audience. Visitors need to sort through the abundance of offerings based on personal taste. For the most part, the videos skip main-dish news.\u00a0 Vice serves up the ingredients that make up the underbelly of the big news stories and offers a bit of garnish on the side. For example, are you curious to understand the emergent culture of wealth in China that\u2019s being fed by American consumerism? Then a report on the burgeoning popularity of high-stakes pigeon racing among China\u2019s newly wealthy will provide you with insights into the changing mores of China\u2019s business class. America, take a good look, the piece implies. This is where your money\u2019s going.<\/p>\n
On the other extreme, a five-part series called \u201cRenegade Jewish Settlers<\/a>\u201d may be the most insightful, on-the-ground reporting of the story of Israeli settlement building and annexation of Palestinian land I\u2019ve ever seen. Reporter Simon Ostrovsky succeeds in opening a window onto the wrenching tragedy of the gulf between hard-line Jewish settlers who believe god and history have granted them the lands they\u2019re taking and the anger and frustration of Palestinian farmers who for generations have lived and farmed those same plots of land.<\/p>\nFascinating and powerful stuff is what Vice dishes up time and again. How about looking into the faces of children working in silver mines in Bolivia in a piece called \u201cChild Workers of the World, Unite!\u201d Would you be shocked, as I was, to learn that child workers have formed their own union called UNATSBO? The union advocates for passage of laws legalizing and regulating child labor. Going into the mines to interview these teen-agers, the reporter shows us that many of las cuartas <\/i>(referring to child laborers who are paid one-quarter of what their labor is worth) are working underground not only to help support their impoverished families but also to save up for their own education. The Vice reporter challenges our first-world assumptions about child labor by asking, \u201cWho suffers when children work? Who suffers when they don\u2019t work?\u201d<\/p>\n