Vox (website)

Cursive letters on a yellow background. The yellow represents the act of highlighting important information, which is done often in their animations and explainations.
You gotta spin it to win it
Media
Icon media.svg
Stop the presses!
We want pictures
of Spider-Man!
  • Journalism
  • Newspapers
  • All articles
Extra! Extra!
  • WIGO World
v - t - e
“”We live in a world of too much information and too little context. Too much noise and too little insight. That's where Vox's explainers come in.
—Vox[1]

Vox is an American news and opinion website founded in April 2014 by former Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein, former Slate columnist Matthew Yglesias and vice president of growth and analytics Melissa Bell, based on the concept of explanatory journalism.[1] In July 2014, Vox received 8.2 million unique visitors,[2] and in August 2019 Vox's readership was estimated to be more than 33 million visitors.[3] As of December 2024, the Vox youtube channel has over 12.4 million subscribers and over 3.6 billion views.[4]

Controversies

In March 2014, before it had officially launched, Vox was criticized by conservative media commentators, including Erick Erickson, for a video[5] it had published arguing the public debt "isn't a problem right now".[6]

In June 2016, Vox suspended contributor Emmett Rensin for a series of tweets calling for anti-Trump riots, including one that said "If Trump comes to your town, start a riot."[7]

In December 2018, Vox received criticism from fans of PewDiePie for an article written by Aja Romano[8] which alleged that PewDiePie had ties to the alt-right and white supremacism,[9] and even went as far as including Laci Green among a list of "alt-right identified figures" — which she was not too happy about.[10] Romano has said she had received harassment on Twitter, while many of the fans urged PewDiePie to sue Vox.[9]

When Vox launched in 2014, the subscription + advertisement model of funding journalism had collapsed. Like many other news organizations, Vox takes grants from external organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation which want to see specific types of reporting. Someone who clicks on an article from Vox Future Perfect and reads an article about an Effective Altruist is unlikely to guess that writers were recruited at an Effective Altruism event, or that for years the column was funded by Effective Altruism organizations which the interviewees helped to fund or govern (a profile of patron Sam Bankman Fried was being written when his fraud collapsed and Future Perfect pivoted to investigating his crimes). While the conflict of interest is clear, Vox chose to accept the money and the supply of eager young writers and dutifully noted the funds (but not the social connections) on its website.

For example, an article on favourite EA topics prediction markets and AI[11] notes that it was funded by an Effective Altruist colleague of Caroline Ellison and Sam Bankman-Fried but is editorially independent. That seems technically correct but disingenuous since the author told effective altruists "I identify as an EA (b) I donate to GiveWell and signed the GWWC pledge (c) many of my friends are EAs" and "I care a lot about persuading people of core EA ideas."[12] A reporter who is a member of a movement, and is partially funded by that movement, would find it difficult to report critically or independently on that movement. The author's staff page does not mention membership in the Effective Altruism movement.[13]

Reception

  • Media Bias/Fact Check labels Vox with a left bias and "Mostly Factual" reporting.[14]
  • AllSides rates Vox with a left bias.[15]
  • Ad Fontes Media rates Vox with a reliabilty score of 41.97 (out of 64, above 32 are good) and bias score of -8.75 (-42 to 42, negative scores being more left).[16]

External links

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Explainers — Vox.
  2. ↑ Weigel, David (August 23, 2014). "Here's What You Need to Know About Politico's Coverage of Vox, in Two Charts". Slate. {{cite news}}: External link in |title= (help)
  3. ↑ "vox.com Traffic Statistics". SimilarWeb. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  4. ↑ "Vox Channel About Page". youtube.com. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |title= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  5. ↑ Yglesias, Matthew (March 28, 2014). "Stop freaking out about the debt". Vox. {{cite news}}: External link in |title= (help)
  6. ↑ Cosman, Ben. "Ezra Klein's Vox Is Already Being Labeled 'Left-Wing Propaganda' by Conservatives". The Atlantic. {{cite news}}: External link in |title= (help)
  7. ↑ Byers, Dylan (June 3, 2016). "Vox suspends editor for encouraging riots at Donald Trump rallies". CNN. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |title= (help)
  8. ↑ Romano, Aja (December 13, 2018). "YouTube's most popular user amplified anti-Semitic rhetoric. Again". Vox. {{cite news}}: External link in |title= (help)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Dube Dwilson, Stephanie (December 17, 2018). "PewDiePie, Wall Street Journal & Vox Feud Explained". Heavy.com. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |title= (help)
  10. ↑ Laci Green on Twitter archived https://archive.ph/gvYa0 "look, calling everyone 'alt right' strips all meaning from the term. im a liberal feminist who happens to like open dialogue. how sUpEr wOkE of vox to constantly lie about youtubers for clicks and views".
  11. ↑ https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/411742/ai-forecasting-prediction-metaculus-llm
  12. ↑ https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/users/dylan-matthews-1 archived https://web.archive.org/web/20250225120555/https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/users/dylan-matthews-1
  13. ↑ https://www.vox.com/authors/dylan-matthews
  14. ↑ Vox - Media Bias/Fact Check
  15. ↑ Vox Media Bias | AllSides
  16. ↑ Vox Bias and Reliability | ad fontes media
This article is issued from Rationalwiki. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.