If you’ve seen Page One, the doc about the New York Times, you’ll remember the tonguelashing media reporter David Carr gave Shane Smith when the VICE founder implied that the Grey Lady’s coverage of Liberia amounted to silly little pieces about surfing: “Just because you put on a fucking safari helmet,” growled Carr, “and looked at some poop doesn’t give you the right to insult what we do.”
Burn!
But now Carr is taking a different tone: “Being the crusty old-media scold felt good at the time,” he writes this week in a piece about the Williamsburg-based media empire’s foray into hard news, “but recent events suggest that Vice is deadly serious about doing real news that people, yes, even young people, will actually watch.” (And yes, given the current climate, he means “deadly” literally.)
Of course, we here at NYU Journalism already knew that, which is why the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute will host a panel discussion that asks, “What in the world are Buzzfeed, Mashable, and VICE News up to as they expand their international coverage?” On Sept. 18, a Times staffer (Amy O’Leary of the paper’s innovation team) will once again butt heads with a VICE honcho (Jason Mojica, editor in chief of VICE News). Okay, they won’t necessarily butt heads, but rather O’Leary will be moderating a panel that’ll also include Louise Roug (Global News Editor at Mashable) and Miriam Elder (Foreign Editor at Buzzfeed).
Not only is the event free, but Bedford + Bowery will stream the talk live (tune in here). Take that, Timcast!
“What in the World” on Sept. 18, 6:30 p.m. at NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, 20 Cooper Sq., nr. East 5th St., 7th Fl.; RSVP here.
