Vice News (stylized as VICE News) is Vice Media's alternative current affairs channel, producing daily documentary essays and video through its website and YouTube channel. It promotes itself on its coverage of "under-reported stories". Vice News was created in December 2013 and is based in New York City, though it has bureaus worldwide.
History
Before Vice News was founded, Vice published news documentaries and news reports from around the world through its YouTube channel alongside other programs. Vice had reported on events such as crime in Venezuela, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, protests in Turkey, the North Korean and Iranian regimes, and the Syrian Civil War through their own YouTube channel and website. After the creation of Vice News as a separate division, its reporting greatly increased with worldwide coverage starting immediately with videos published on YouTube and articles on its website daily.
In December 2013, Vice Media expanded its international news division into an independent division dedicated exclusively to news and created Vice News. Vice Media put $50million into its news division, setting up 34 bureaus worldwide and drawing praise for its in-depth coverage of international news. Vice News has primarily targeted a younger audience comprised predominantly of millennials, the same audience to which its parent company appeals.
In November 2014, Vice News launched its French-language version.
In October 2015, Vice hired Josh Tyrangiel to run a daily Vice News show for HBO. Tyrangiel had recently left Bloomberg Businessweek, where he was reported to be "a divisive figure who was both admired and despised during his six years there." Tyrangiel named Ryan McCarthy, formerly an assistant editor of The New York Times, as editor-in-chief of Vice News.
In May 2016, it was announced that Tyrangiel had been promoted to oversee all of Vice News. As the announcement was made, Tyrangiel promptly laid off some 20 editorial and production staff members. In an interview given the previous week, Vice Media founder Shane Smith called Tyrangiel "a murderer," foretelling a "bloodbath" in digital media. That June, Tyrangiel touted various new hires he had brought aboard as part of his team.
In December 2016, it was announced that Vice News had entered into a partnership with The Guardian newspaper that will include Guardian journalists working at Vice's offices in East London and contributing to the two HBO television programs currently on the air. It will also include allowing The Guardian access to Vice's video production skills with content distributed to its millennial-skewed global audience.
On May 15, 2023, Vice Media formally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as part of a possible sale to a consortium of lenders including Fortress Investment Group, which will, alongside Soros Fund Management and Monroe Capital, invest $225million as a credit bid for nearly all of its assets.
Reporters
Vice News had more than 100 members of its reporting and editorial staff in 35 bureaus around the world including New York City, Toronto, London, Berlin, Mexico City, São Paulo, Los Angeles, Istanbul, Moscow, Beijing, and Kabul. On April 21, 2014, while covering the Russo-Ukrainian War, Vice News reporter Simon Ostrovsky was kidnapped by pro-Russian separatist forces and held for three days before being released in Sloviansk.
Programming and content
Since its creation, Vice News has covered emerging events and widespread issues around the world. Every day it publishes a daily news capsule called "News Beyond the Headlines" where it briefly covers four daily stories which did not receive much coverage by other mainstream news outlets but it still considers important. It also publishes daily articles on its website on a variety of world current events, along with maintaining a Vice News Wire where it displays wire reports from around the world.
