Vice, a highly valued media organization/content studio, has a totally reasonable, not-at-all journalistically compromising policy that requires stories about brands to get approval from higher-ups first, according to an email exchange former editor associate editor Charles Davis posted on Twitter.
You know, just in case it interferes with actual business opportunities.
In the case mentioned in the email exchange, a story, written by freelancer “roving journalist” Michael Tracey about the NFL ran. The guys upstairs weren’t pleased, but whatever. But they were even more upset when the freelancer went and talked about his story on the BBC. “This is the kind of thing people around here get PISSED about–they don’t know you, they don’t know Tracey, all they see is this article that (to their mind anyway) is potentially fucking things up for them,” read part of one of the emails Mr. David posted.
Well, Gawker wrote about the whole thing, and one imagines the fallout will, potentially, kind of fuck things up for Vice. But maybe not, because its just a bunch of outraged journalists, not brands. And Vice really loves its brand synergy.
