Vice’s new channel will not be a ‘pink ghetto’, editor-in-chief insists
|
Version 0 of 1. Vice’s new channel Broadly won’t be a “pink ghetto” catering only to women but will focus on issues such as abortion and LGBT rights that the mainstream press are failing to cover, according to the channel’s editor-in-chief. The team working on Broadly views abortion rights as its top priority, said Tracie Egan Morrissey, who was hired by Vice chief executive Shane Smith after pitching the idea for the channel last year. “I understand the argument that this could be perceived as as pink ghetto, but that’s not at all what this is,” said Morrissey “This is a beacon to bring women in to the conversation and elevate the conversation about women across all of the Vice channels.” “Obviously abortion rights is huge for us. That’s just a huge huge issue all around the world, and probably for me and my staff the most important issue that needs to be covered right now.” Related: Vice and Unilever team up for launch of female-focused channel Morrissey, who previously worked at Gawker Media’s feminist site Jezebel, said recent media scandals, such as the lack of coverage of rape accusations against Bill Cosby and a Rolling Stone article detailing a rape at the University of Virginia that contained inaccuracies, highlighted mainstream media’s poor record covering issues that affect women. “All of the shit that happened with rape in the media, the [Bill] Cosby thing, the UVA story, all of that was the media’s failure to cover women. It’s the media’s failure to cover women properly, and throughly and authentically and honestly.” Vice is partnering on Broadly with multinational Unilever, which makes consumer products ranging from Ben and Jerry’s ice cream to Dove soap. Unilever was one of the companies which reportedly put pressure on another successful digital media business, BuzzFeed, to remove posts. Morrissey said she did not expect any pressure from advertisers to dictate what Broadly can run, but the site was unlikely to face similar problems because of the type of stories it intends to tell. She said: “I don’t think we could not do a story, if it’s true, it’s true. [But] we’re not going to be doing think pieces where you can write something from your couch about something that’s happening on Twitter. “We’re reporting on stuff. I wouldn’t ever do some kind of a piece that was just ranting about something, but if it’s something serious, I don’t see any problem writing about that.” |