Vox (website)

"Vox.com" redirects here. For the former blogging platform, see Vox (blogging platform).
Vox
Type of site
 Opinion website
Available in English
Owner Vox Media
Editor Ezra Klein[1]
Website www.vox.com
Alexa rank Increase 909 (as of August 2016)[2]
Commercial Yes
Registration Optional
Launched April 6, 2014 (2014-04-06)
Current status Active

Vox is an American news and opinion website owned by Vox Media. The website was founded in 2014 by Ezra Klein. Vox is noted for its concept of "explanatory journalism" and its use of "card stacks" that define terms and provide context within an article. It has been described as having a liberal or progressive editorial perspective.[3]

History

Ezra Klein left The Washington Post in January 2014 for a position with Vox Media, the publishers of the sports website SB Nation, technology website The Verge, and video gaming website Polygon.[4] The New York Times described Vox Media as "a technology company that produces media" rather than its inverse, associated with "Old Media".[4] Klein expected to "improve the technology of news" and build an online platform better equipped for making news understandable.[4] The new site's 20-person staff was chosen for their expertise in topic areas and included Slate's Matthew Yglesias, Melissa Bell, and Klein's colleagues from The Washington Post.[4][5]

Vox launched in early April 2014 with Klein as its editor-in-chief. His opening editorial essay, "How politics makes us stupid", explained his distress about political polarization in the context of Yale Law School professor Dan Kahan's theories on how people protect themselves from information that conflicts with their core beliefs.[6]

The Wall Street Journal reported that in 2014, Vox took in $60 million in revenue and was profitable.[7]

As of August 2015, Vox Media, which owns Vox, had received funding valuing it at over $1 billion, thus becoming a startup unicorn. Of this amount, $200 million came from NBCUniversal, $100 million from the venture arm of Comcast (NBC Universal's parent company), and $46.8 million from General Atlantic.[7] Other investors included Accel Partners, Allen & Company, Khosla Ventures, and former AOL executive Ted Leonsis.[8]

In June 2016, Vox suspended contributor Emmett Rensin for a series of tweets calling for anti-Trump riots, including one on June 3, 2016 that urged, "If Trump comes to your town, start a riot." The tweets drew attention after violent anti-Trump protests took place in San Jose, California on the day of Rensin's tweet.[9][10][11][12]

Content

In order to reuse prior journalist work, Vox creates "card stacks" in bright "canary yellow" that provide context and define terms within an article. The cards are perpetually maintained as a form of "wiki page written by one person with a little attitude".[13] As an example, a card about the term "insurance exchange" may be reused on stories about the Affordable Care Act.[13]

The site uses Vox Media's Chorus content management system, which enables journalists to easily create articles with complex visual effects and transitions, such as photos that change as the reader scrolls.[13] Vox Media's properties target educated households with six-figure incomes and a head of house less than 35 years old.[13]

Reception

In March 2014, before it had officially launched, Vox was criticized by conservative media commentators, including Erick Erickson.[14]

The website's launch received significant media attention.[15] Websites noted that the launch came around the same time as other data and explainer websites like FiveThirtyEight and the New York Times' The Upshot.[16][17] Vox was described as using "Upworthy" style headlines to enhance shareability and to act as a "Wikipedia for ongoing news stories."[15]

Shortly after it launched, conservative writer David Harsanyi criticized the site's concept of "explanatory journalism" in an article in The Federalist titled "How Vox makes us stupid", arguing that the website selectively chose facts, and that "explanatory journalism" inherently leaves out opposing viewpoints and different perspectives.[18] Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry at The Week argued that the website produced "partisan commentary in question-and-answer disguise" and criticized the site for having a "starting lineup [that] was mostly made up of ideological liberals."[19] The Week's Ryu Spaeth described the site's operations as, "It essentially takes the news (in other words, what is happening in the world at any given moment in time) and frames it in a way that appeals to its young, liberal audience."[3]

The Economist, commenting on Klein's launching essay "How politics makes us stupid," said the website was "bright and promising" and the premise behind the site was "profoundly honourable," and positively compared the site's mission to John Keats's negative capability.[6]

The New York Times's David Carr associated Klein's exit for Vox with other "big-name journalists" leaving newspapers for digital start-ups, such as Walter Mossberg and Kara Swisher (Re/code), David Pogue, and Nate Silver.[4]

In December 2014, the website Deadspin wrote a post listing each time Vox ran a correction for a factual error in an article.[20] In The Washington Times, journalist Christopher J. Harper criticized the site for numerous reporting mistakes.[21]

In 2015, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry presented Julia Belluz the Robert B. Balles Prize for Critical Thinking for her work on Vox. "We need more people in the media doing what Julia Bellux does... "[22]

In 2016, after Donald Trump was elected US president, Glenn Greenwald criticized media including Vox for "suppressing reporting that reflects negatively on them (the Democratic Party) and instead confines itself to hagiography." in the run-up and aftermath of the election.[23]

Readership

In June 2015, Vox had 54.1 million unique visitors, of which 41% were between the ages of 18 and 34, according to comScore Inc.[7]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.vox.com/authors/ezra-klein
  2. ↑ "Vox.com Site Overview". Alexa Internet. Retrieved August 3, 2016.
  3. 1 2 "The Gawker meltdown and the Vox-ification of the news media". 2015-07-21. Retrieved 2016-10-24.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Carr, David (January 26, 2014). "Ezra Klein Is Joining Vox Media as Web Journalism Asserts Itself". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 26, 2014. Retrieved December 26, 2014.
  5. ↑ Vox.com is going to be a great test of Ezra Klein’s critique of journalism, Columbia Journalism Review (April 7, 2014).
  6. 1 2 "Ezra Klein's strangled Vox". The Economist. 2014-04-11. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2016-11-04.
  7. 1 2 3 Alpert, Lukas I. Comcast Invests $200 Million in Vox Media. The Wall Street Journal. 2015-08-12. Accessed on 2016-06-26.
  8. ↑ Griffith, Erin. Vox Media becomes a startup "unicorn" with NBCU funding. Fortune. 2015-08-12. Accessed on 2016-06-26.
  9. ↑ Byers, Dylan (June 3, 2016). "Vox suspends editor for encouraging riots at Donald Trump rallies". CNN. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  10. ↑ Halper, Evan (June 3, 2016). "Vox suspends editor who called for anti-Trump riots". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  11. ↑ Emmett Rensin [emmettrensin] (June 2, 2016). "Advice: If Trump comes to your town, start a riot." (Twitter post). Retrieved June 2, 2016.
  12. ↑ Wemple, Eric (June 3, 2016). "What will a suspension do for a Vox editor who urged anti-Trump riots?". Washington Post. Retrieved June 5, 2016.
  13. 1 2 3 4 Kaufman, Leslie (April 6, 2014). "Vox Takes Melding of Journalism and Technology to a New Level". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 26, 2014. Retrieved December 26, 2014.
  14. ↑ Cosman, Ben. "Ezra Klein's Vox Is Already Being Labeled 'Left-Wing Propaganda' by Conservatives". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2016-11-03.
  15. 1 2 "How Vox is going to make its way to the top". The Daily Dot. 2014-04-07. Retrieved 2016-11-04.
  16. ↑ "The Upshot, Vox and FiveThirtyEight: data journalism's golden age, or TMI?". The Guardian. 2014-04-22. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2016-11-04.
  17. ↑ "Ezra Klein launches news site Vox.com". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2016-11-04.
  18. ↑ Politics. "How Vox makes us stupid". Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  19. ↑ "Vox, derp, and the intellectual stagnation of the left". The Week. Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  20. ↑ Draper, Kevin. "46 Times Vox Totally Fucked Up A Story". The Concourse. Retrieved 2016-11-04.
  21. ↑ Harper, Christopher (2015-01-07). "Vox news website needs to take serious look at how it 'reinvents' journalism". The Washingtion Times. Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  22. ↑ Fidalgo, Paul (2016). "CSI's Balles Prize in Critical Thinking Awarded to Julia Belluz of Vox.com". Skeptical Inquirer. 40 (5): 6.
  23. ↑ Greenwald, Glenn. "The Stark Contrast Between GOP's Self-Criticism in 2012 and Democrats' Blame-Everyone-Else Posture Now". The Intercept. Retrieved 2016-11-20.
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