by Rea Gierran
CANNES – Viceland’s Spike Jonze and Shane Smith talked about making content that people will care about. Smith said to start with things that they truly care about. “We hire young and smart people. We are not afraid to fail. We make a lot of content anyway so if there is bad stuff, you can actually cover it up,” Jonze added.
Having started as a magazine and now fully operating as a broadcast channel, VICE’s tone got a lot more serious. Things had to be adjusted. Smith says that young people in America do not care about news, especially international news.
VICE has come up with new and different ways to tell stories but Jonze says it also depends upon the intention of the story. “If the story needs traditional storytelling, then so be it. It’s useful to know when to use a structured storytelling or not.”
Smith admits that what they did poorly in their first few days is failing to recognize how visually led TV is. “We did not look good. We struggled as we were magazine guys, we write things before they happen and that’s a different skill set. We were not visually riveting,” he said.
As to how to establish trust from your audience despite growing numer of media, Smith says that the key is to be honest. “Don’t try to cover up mistakes. A lot of companies are trying to be perfect when media itself is not perfect.”
