The Intercept - Vice’s Hard-Right Turn to Trumpism

In new videos, Vice editor-in-chief Shane Smith treats immigrants as a problem and apologizes to Elon Musk for past coverage.

Nikita Mazurov
November 19 2024, 11:34 a.m.



VICE News once covered the border with videos that exposed the hardships faced by immigrants, such as “The Human Cost of Hardening the US-Mexico Border” and “What It’s Like To Raise Your Child In An Immigration Detention Center.”

It was quite a shift, then, when just before the election, Vice News uploaded to its YouTube channel a video originally titled: “This is How Illegals are Sneaking into the USA.” Vice News later retitled the video to “This is how people are Sneaking into the USA,” walking back language that had overtly dehumanized immigrants by referring to them as “illegals” rather than people.

The video appears to be representative of a new era for the media company. Best known for helping define the Brooklyn hipster aesthetic and publishing provocative original reporting in its heyday, Vice Media collapsed in recent years, going from a company valued at multiple billions of dollars with a show on HBO to declaring bankruptcy, laying off hundreds of workers, and being sold for $350 million to a hedge fund.

Vice co-founder Shane Smith stepped down as CEO in 2018, but has remained the company’s executive chair with a reported $8 million salary in the interim and retained control throughout. This summer, he took on the role of Vice’s editor-in-chief. Now, he’s the on-camera talent for a new slate of video content called “Shane Smith Has Questions.” The Canadian-born journalist’s focus seems to be trained on the southern border, with an editorial line closer to Trump campaign fearmongering than hard news reporting. (Smith is not to be confused with Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes, who left the media company and established the far-right militant group the Proud Boys).

/snip