This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we reflect on VICE's legacy, archiving, and whether the internet is really forever.
JASON: In the last week or so, VICE’s website has published a deep, fearless investigation into a Christian Nationalist church where Proud Boys get baptized, a horrifying article about a extortion and child torture ring operating on Discord, given voice to tenants organizing against megaslumlords who are funded primarily by federal government grants, broke the news about an FBI investigation into sexual abuse in a secretive religious sect, spoke to the mother of a teenager who died from legal “gas station heroin,” and revealed that a peer-reviewed scientific journal published an AI-generated diagram of a rat with a gigantic penis (one of the most viral stories on the internet over the last week). Previously published stories also led to a newly-announced $16.5 million fine against Avast for selling browsing data taken from antivirus software, and a newly-announced OSHA fine against Amazon for not giving workers shade or giving them time for breaks.
These articles were published under some of the most dire financial and managerial circumstances you could possibly imagine, at a company whose leaders are now private equity goons systematically destroying a newsroom after having already destroyed numerous beloved brands. There will not be any more investigations, scoops, fun blogs, or any of the other stuff that made VICE good and essential, and it was good and essential. There is no real indication that any of the executives there know about or even remotely care about the journalism that its workers have miraculously still managed to publish under their historically inept regime, but I care, and the millions of people who continued to read VICE through all of this cared, as well.