Shane Smith - The media and establishment is inherently conservative

In 1993 Christopher Hitchens said, "there is one party - that is a beltway party, a Washington party, a permanent party, the party of those in power and most of those in the leadership of the Washington equipe of which the press are members of it and proud of it and lucky and afraid of the possibility of falling out of favour." Shane Smith also speaks critically of the US politico-media establishment. He said:

Ralph Steadman - "I envy the ones starting out now"

Like Christopher Hitchens, Ralph Steadman said that he envies the young person starting out. He said:

"I envy the ones starting out now, with all that in front of them to do something interesting. And whatever they do is theirs, not mine."

Original in full here (27m30s). Christopher Hitchens on being envious of the young person starting out, here. Shane Smith of Vice also said that the present is the best time to be alive and in journalism.

Understanding journalism and the proper role of the Fourth Estate

As Andrew Sullivan said, "Every now and again, it’s perhaps worth revisiting the entire definition of journalism." At present, journalism and the media is out of step with the original and traditional model. The traditional model is based on the premise, as Glenn Greenwald said, that:

"Basic to political science and the American founding and to human nature is that people cannot operate and exercise power without checks or they’ll inevitably abuse it."

As Daniel Ellsberg, the Edward Snowden of the 20th Centruy, said:

"Secrecy corrupts, just as power corrupts." 

Therefore it falls upon journalism and the free press, Edmund Burke's "Fourth Estate", to shine a light upon the powerful and those who want to act in secrecy. Journalists are to be the adversaries and opponents of the powerful. Their job is to be in confrontation against, and not in collaboration with the government. Glenn Greenwald said July 2 2013 on Fox and Friends:

"Thomas Jefferson, 250 years ago, said those who most fear investigations are the ones who attack free press first. This is what journalism is about, shining a light on what the most powerful people in the country are doing to them in the dark. "

The relationship between money and words will be corrected, Ctd

Andrew Sullivan said during a March 2014 address to Harvard University on the fall of journalism to advertising and PR:

"Suddenly this great [internet] freedom became a great liability. [The internet] was destroying their profits. Eradicating lots of things they were able to do."

Sinead Gleeson (@sineadgleeson) wrote an article in the Guardian on how writers are poorer and struggling to survive, eat, pay rent in the internet age. Joanna Kavenna was quoted as saying, ‘Being a writer stopped being the way it had been for ages. It wasn’t what I expected.’

Yet Shane Smith (@shanesmith30), VICE envisions a change and a correction in the relationship between words and money:

"Everything online is free, we have been a free magazine, everything we do online is free. I think we are going to move towards more of a subscription model. I think that young people are realizing that I’d rather be a part of it. You know Kickstarter has been really successful. On a business sense, on a philosophical sense, where people realize if I believe in something I’m going to actually be part of that. Which I think is incredibly positive. And I think that that’s going to be the next wave of how people are going to get things done online."

What a time to be alive - The great opportunity of new media journalism, Ctd

Shane Smith (@ShaneSmith30) co-founder and CEO of Vice (@VICE)

Shane Smith (@ShaneSmith30) said at Internet Week NY 2013 here:

"It’s the best time ever in history to be a content creator."

He also said here:

"It’s shifting towards the content-creator - it’s literally the best time in history... creating content is the best business model out there at the moment."

Interestingly, he sees India as the measure of the future, by grace of its booming youth population:

"As goes India, so shall go the world."

Jonathan Ives, Apple designer, said:

"We are at the beginning of a remarkable time, when a remarkable number of products will be developed. When you think about technology and what it has enabled us to do so far, and what it will enable us to do in future, we’re not even close to any kind of limit. It’s still so, so new."

Shane explained the VICE media model during his Internet Week talk:

"We didn’t start out to be a news company... we started out as an entertainment company. We were sort of pushed into news. A, we enjoy it. B, our audience pushed us into it."