Vice Media Announces Layoffs and Content Shutdown
In a shocking turn of events for the media world, Vice Media has made the decision to cease publishing new content on its flagship website and lay off several hundred staff members. The once-thriving company filed for bankruptcy in May before being sold to Fortress Investment Group for $350 million. Unfortunately, cost-cutting measures, job cuts, and the cancellation of Vice News Tonight program were not enough to reverse its fortunes.
Vice Media will now shift its focus to partnering with other media companies and adopt a “studio model” moving forward. This means reducing its workforce and eliminating several hundred positions. The youth-focused brand also announced that its music website, Pitchfork Media, will be merged into GQ Magazine.
The struggles of Vice Media are just a part of a larger trend in the industry. Traditional and digital media outlets are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain a viable business model, leading to hundreds of job cuts in the past year alone. Vice’s rivals, such as BuzzFeed News and Jezebel, both shut down last year, while Vox Media and Condé Nast have also made significant job cuts.
This downturn in the media industry has been felt across the board, with digital news start-up The Messenger shuttering in 2024 and layoffs announced at prominent outlets like TechCrunch, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Newsroom employment in the US has plummeted by more than a quarter between 2008 and 2021.
It’s a particularly stark decline for Vice, which grew from a print magazine into a multimedia company valued at $5.7 billion in 2017 at the height of its success. Now, the company faces an uncertain future as it navigates these challenging times in the media landscape.
