'Guardian,' 'Vice' Strike Content Partnership Deal

The Guardian and Vice are partnering to collaborate on news reports that will air in the US and the UK, across Vice’s channels. One is a London-based publisher founded nearly 200 years ago, the other a 22-year-old media brand based in New York.

The Guardian will bring its journalistic prowess to Vice’s brand, and Vice will provide its video production skills and access to a millennial audience.

“This partnership recognizes the Guardian and Vice as pioneers in digital news and underscores our commitment to using video to open up our journalism in new and interesting ways,” Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief at Guardian News & Media, said in a Guardian report announcing the deal.

A small team of Guardian journalists, led by multimedia news editor Mustafa Khalili, will be based at Vice’s offices in east London, working with Vice News producers and executives to produce original content.

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Co-branded reports will air across Vice’s nightly news show: “Vice News Tonight,” Vice and HBO’s weekly series “Vice on HBO” as well as “Vice Specials,” the hour-long documentary series for HBO.

According to The Guardian, this is the first content partnership deal Vice News has struck with another news organization.

“This partnership provides a test case for the way forward in multiplatform exploitation of content,” Shane Smith, co-founder and chief executive of Vice Media, told The Guardian. “When that content is the foremost investigative news in the business, it becomes even more imperative. Real, fact-based, trusted news has never been more important."

In September, Vice launched its "Viceland UK" television channel on Sky.

David Pemsel, chief executive of Guardian Media Group, the parent company of TheGuardian and Observer, said in the article that the partnership represents the Guardian’s strategy “to innovate on a global scale to maximize both the revenue potential and impact of our journalism.”

In July, The Guardian revealed an operating loss of £69 million (or $90.5 million) in the year ending March 2016.

Another British publisher, The Economist, has been making efforts to tap into the U.S. millennial audience. In October, the 173-year-old newspaper announced it would publish a weekend edition on the Snapchat Discover platform to reach Snapchat’s 100 million daily users, most under the age of 35.
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