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Explanatory Journalism at its Finest
Vox continues to do God’s work by providing crucial context explaining current events and helping to create an informed citizenry able to understand the complex world in which we live. With ISIS militants at the gates of Bagdad, Dylan Matthews has cut to the heart of this multifaceted issue and provided crucial insight which will enable readers to make informed judgments about what America’s response to this situation should be. His article, “17 Reasons not to trust Dick Cheney,” is truly the key to understanding the shifting dynamics of war-torn Mesopotamia.
Do I detect a hint of sarcasm in this? ;)
Maybe a smidgen …
How seriously can you take a Vox piece that isn’t even in Powerpoint format?
Like.
Is anyone actually reading this site? The only plugs I’ve seen on social media are from employees of Vox. Are people naturally flocking to the site? I think most people understand it’s the daily kos with good new media production.
The five most read articles on Vox currently are:
1) 9 questions about Yo you were embarrassed to ask
2) Why you shouldn’t drive slowly in the left lane
3) A scientist in 1906 found a better way to cut cake
4) Amazon’s new smartphone, explained
5) Amazon’s new phone is way too good
These are truly important stories. If you aren’t reading Vox at least daily, I don’t see how you can consider yourself to be an informed citizen.
The faintest wisp of a shadow of a hint?
Man, the satire does write itself. Bravo Sal.
Still… arguably more newsworthy than anything on CNN’s home page.
Considering that Vox has now become almost precisely what most of us predicted it would, we can probably just dispense with any “shocked, shocked!” pretensions and just turn this thread into a (well-deserved) victory lap.
But before we pop too much champagne, I would like to point out that there have been several online endeavors launched over the last few years by some of the most talented 30-something conservative journalists which have also been…..disappointing.
The embarrassing hubris of the “wonk” crowd is certainly to blame for much of Vox’ underwhelming impression. But perhaps this wave of unimpressive “new” media also harbors a more sobering lesson: that some of the etrapments of old, stodgy media institutions might actually add a significant amount of value.
I want to play the Vox mock headline game-
7 Grammar Rules You Should Ignores
11 Slides Showing Why Wal-Mart Fair Trade Coffee Isn’t Really Fair After All
The 6 Continents Not Hosting the World Cup, and Why They Matter
How to Inoffensively Flip Off a Light Switch in 3 Simple Steps
These 2 Branches of Government Explain Why President Obama Cannot Stop School Shootings Alone
You can’t create effective satire of Vox. I tried. They are beyond parody.
This is from their twitter feed.
Jay Carney was less in the tank for the administration.
The answer there is yes. My brother frequently turns to Vox and posts their drivel on his FB feed. This is why you should never friend relatives on social media. Really, Vox.com exists as a Confirmation Bias Aggregation site for people like my brother who are so firmly entrenched in their progressivism.
My only fear with Vox is that its production value and mixing in of cat video-level news will lull people into thinking it’s an actual new site. So far, it seems that only the Daily Kos crowd has tuned in. Hopefully it never breaks the silo.
If there’s something that kills Vox, I expect it’ll be their refusal to allow discussion on site. So many news sites allow commentary. Vox.com for whatever reason insulates themselves from any criticism on their own website.
I think a lot of the problem with wonkiness is that self-proclaimed wonks frequently make two incorrect assumptions.
The first that they can adequately explain complex matters of public policy in a way that a mass audience will find engaging and accessible. This isn’t the case. Being a policy wonk means getting into the details and most people simply don’t care enough to do that. You can either be substantive or popularly read, it’s virtually impossible to do both.
The second mistake (one to which left-leaning wonks are particularly prone) is that they refuse to acknowledge that they have a personal ideology which informs their policy analysis and preference. They tend to think of themselves as post-ideological, viewing their policy preferences as solely the product of objective analysis. Consequently, they are frequently surprised to encounter disagreement based on divergent starting premises.
But I think they are outsourcing the comments to twitter, facebook, and other sites. Comments clutter up the site itself and make for a bad landing page. I don’t think the lack of audience interaction will kill the site.
That’s very true.
This is perhaps the best description of Vox I’ve come across, though in fairness it applies pretty well to most of the internet.
A few weeks ago, someone had a post about an environmental magazine profiling Hillary that usually runs articles along the lines of “how to hug a tree without sexually harassing it.”
Whoever that was, please chime in here and play the mock-Vox headline game.
hah – statements pulled out of context and proven to have ultimately been untrue. You know, with 6 years of Obama quotes under our belts, I wonder what an enterprising young journalist with the talent of Dylan Matthews could do to skewer our sitting president? Yeah, you’re right. Probably nothing. Just no material, there.
I disagree somewhat. It’s not impossible to distill a complex, technical subject into a digestible form while still retaining the most important themes. There are a few good journalists who do so on a regular basis, and in the business world it happens on a daily basis.
But it’s an incredibly tough task, and most modern “journalists” fail to appreciate the hard work required – especially those on the left who are so adored by their fans that they are lulled into believing their intellectual prowess can substitute for hard work.
Iowahawk has been having fun at Vox’s expense.
Some highlights:
Agree that not having comments is a benefit.
The primary mission of a news site should be informing people. Most comment sections do not add any meaningful value to that objective, and the poor quality and tone of most comment sections only serves to drag down the dignity of the original content.
There are enough places on the internet to hash out the latest NYT article at a third-grade reading level – the Times’ own website should not be one of those.
If my memory, which admittedly is old, remembers correctly, Saddam Hussein used chemical warfare against his countrymen. One instance is known as the Halabja Massacre or Bloody Friday. It is a well documented and Vox managed not to figure that one out.
There were delivery systems for chemical weapons which were found. The chemical weapons were missing. One wonders about missing chemicals for weapons systems which had been previously used. Or perhaps one builds weapons systems for no good reason at all?
It was reported in several quarters that convoys of trucks were leaving Iraq and going to Syria immediately prior to the second Gulf War. No one knows what was on those trucks, so maybe Vox can check and see if it was a sight-seeing tour?
“Vox continues to do God’s work”. I don’t know what to do with that one.
Are you familiar with the concept of sarcasm?
As the market shows, again and again, reportage and punditry is worthless unless considered entertainment.
As to the equivalent conservative sites being equally underwhelming, I can only agree. The Federalist, to take a recent example, is un-navigable and un-readable. If only Mollie could be liberated…
Twenty-somethings trying to explain things to twenty-somethings.
Dude, the Constitution was like, more than ten years ago.
I don’t think ignorance of public policy is a uniquely, or even particularly, twenty-something vice.