Say what you will about Vice Magazine, their original web video site, VBS.TV is showing the world how it’s done when it comes to compelling, engaging and important content. For those who fear investigative journalism is in its death throes this is strong proof that we are just on the cusp of a whole new approach to the form.
Their latest 9-part series is an in-your-face look at the photo-journalists behind Mexico’s hugely popular tabloids featuring gruesome pictures of the recently murdered.
Far more than shock journalism (although be warned, this stuff is truly shocking and not for kids), this is a legitimately exciting and disturbing piece of investigative journalism, the kind that some fear will die along with dead-tree newspapers.
What is most impressive about the news video created by VBS is that it treats its audience like intelligent, critical thinkers. There is no spoon-feeding and no fear-mongering. I also love seeing how our new technology, from tiny cameras to mass distribution is allowing many more people to take their shot at finding and reporting the news.
Far from the death of news, I believe we are just entering its finest hour.
Ok, that might be a bit of an exaggaration but one of the things that makes web video tough to cashify is figuring out just what to charge for. What does getting 1,000,000 “views” on YouTube really mean.
A recent dust-up with some Avril Levigne supporters creating autoplay embeds on her video “Girlfriend” so that it would beat out “The Evolution of Dance” to become the so-called most popular video on YouTube.
According to NTV, this might have caused a change in policy over at YouTube:
“…we have reason to believe the site has stopped counting views from videos set to play automatically on pages around the web. We first took notice of the issue when popular producers contacted us saying they’d seen a dramatic drop-off in the number of views they receive for new videos. It’s possible that YouTube has adjusted more than one aspect of its view count methods, and it’s also possible that the view count methods are just malfunctioning. But enough people are mentioning the autoplay issue that we think there’s a good chance that’s the issue.”
While it’s a good step for YouTube to take I don’t think it is going to make much of a difference in the overall scheme of things. There will still be plenty of people out there able to game the system and the actual value of a view will remain in the eye of the beholder.
So I read over on Mashable that YouTube is launching a “reporters” channel. According to YouTube’s very own blog (aw, they have a blog…not a vlog?)
“People around the world have been using YouTube to report on the events and issues affecting their lives, shedding light on stories that might otherwise not be told and offering new perspectives on events covered by the traditional media. Today, to highlight these journalists on YouTube, we’re announcing the launch of the Reporter channel type.”
So, with that in mind, I ask you, is this the future of news:
While there are tons of sites out there providing video on the web VBS.tv, the Vice Magazine-produced website, is one of the best.
A case in point is this new entry from their rough-and-tumble travel series, this time focusing on the rarely seen North Korea.
Not only does the VBS travel series feel completely authentic but it really takes viewers to places they’re just not gonna see on the Travel Channel. While I’m sure it can’t be super-cheap to produce shows like this, the value of a well-made series, even with just a few episodes, far trumps the value of hundreds of mediocre vids.
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June 3, 2009 6:43 am | 
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