from the pseudo-journalistic-infotainment dept
Last year you might recall that Vice Media suffered its final collapse after years of mismanagement by incompetent, fail-upward brunchlords. The new owners, Savage Ventures, quickly made it clear they were going to be even worse than past Vice management, firing a ton of talented writers and editors, and shifting Vice’s focus even harder toward engagement-chasing infotainment slop.
So it’s not particularly surprising to see a new scandal in which Savage Ventures is being accused of randomly deleting “controversial” articles over at its gaming sub-brand Waypoint, a decision that has resulted in most of its staff quitting in protest.
Waypoint journalists had written several articles about an Australian collective named Collective Shout. Collective Shout insists it’s “a grassroots campaigning movement against the objectification of women and sexualization of girls in media, advertising, and popular culture.” Its founder proclaims to be feminist, but its tactics mirror those of many evangelical censorship orgs.
The group has taken credit for several campaigns, including banning Snoop Dog and Eminem from Australia, and a successful push to stop Target and Kmart to from selling Grand Theft Auto 5 in Australia. They recently took credit for Steam’s removal of several sexually explicit games and new, stricter content moderation guidelines. PC Gamer suggests the group often over-inflates its achievements.
Waypoint published two articles in July about the group and its campaign against Steam: “This Group Takes Responsibility For Steam’s Payment Processor Censorship Policies–They Just Implied ‘Pervert Nerds’ Cause Society’s Problems and “Group Behind Steam Censorship Policies Have Powerful Allies–And Targeted Popular Games With Outlandish Claims.”
Neither of the articles had what appear to be any errors or particularly controversial claims. Savage Ventures owners apparently just got concerned that the “controversial” nature of the pieces would hurt Google metrics and lose them money. So according to (now-ex) Waypoint writer Ana Valens, they pulled both articles offline without any real conversation with their authors:
This is not surprising behavior from the kind of VC opportunists that hoover up the corpses of once popular media brands, then parade those corpses around in an incoherent gambit to make a quick buck off of clickbait and shallow infotainment (see Sports Illustrated and countless other examples).
These kinds of folks don’t care about journalism, they care about metrics. And even then they’re not even particularly good at that; Vice has been less and less relevant since its 2024 final collapse, losing oceans of talent. Including these Waypoint authors, who justifiably quit once their articles were deleted. Defector suggests about 66% of the Waypoint team, including managing editor Dwayne Jenkins, have since quit.
The abrupt deletions of course adhere to absolutely no journalistic standards whatsoever. It’s the half-assed decision by a bunch of opportunists who are interested in clicks and attention, not journalism. And while this particular scandal impacted games journalism, it’s part of a broader trend toward the hollowing out of journalism, something being easily exploited by authoritarians and other bullshitters.
It’s more profitable to make a quick buck striking acquisition deals and pointless mergers for the tax breaks — generating badly automated clickbait and bullshit at historic scale — than it is to pay real reporters a living wage to create actual quality journalism and interesting content. The end result of that lazy and cheap mindset is everywhere you look. And it’ definitely getting worse.
Filed Under: ana valens, australia, brunchlords, censorship, journalism, media, nudity, porn, steam, video games, waypoint
Companies: collective shout, savage ventures, vice media
