HBO's new newsmagazine show, VICE, offers a rush of stories that go where reporters rarely go — or would want to go, for that matter. But they do go — to ferret out rebel militiamen in Philippines or meet with the Taliban in Afghanistan — and it's that sense of risk and the feistiness of the VICE brand that makes the show captivating.
The gonzo journalism series, premiering Friday, April 5, at 11 p.m. ET, is a spinoff of the website of the same name, a one-time print magazine that evolved into a digital spot for Gen-Y news, entertainment and culture.
The weekly cable series is being brought to viewers by executive producer Bill Maher and his Maher Productions. You can understand the appeal of VICE to Maher: while he conducts panel discussions on the hot-button issues of the times, the VICE crew gets up off the couch and faces the issues head-on.
In the first segment of episode one, "Assassination Nation,"
VICE travels to the Philippines to report on the region's epidemic political assassinations, and goes in search of the rebel BIFM Militia that's alleged to be responsible for the mass execution of a prominent political family.
VICE finds squadrons of boys armed to the teeth with illegally made, untraceable automatic weapons (top and right).
The show's second segment, "The Killer Kids of the Taliban," has VICE magazine founder and lead correspondent Shane Smith traveling to Kabul to report on the Afghanistan capital's relentless suicide bombings, with a focus on the children who are conscripted out of Pakistani madrassas by the Taliban to carry out the deeds.
Maybe in order to show us the raw reality that otherwise gets sanitized for broadcast — or, perhaps, to just kick us in the groin — the segment plainly shows a severed hand being carried away from a bombing scene, and a decapitated head lying peacefully face up on the asphalt. (
The news segments on the
VICE website show similar stories, such as the graphic reports on the recent
French military incursion into Mali.)
Smith's heartbreaking piece features interviews with poor, illiterate boys who were arrested before they were able to explode their bombs. The boys say they were told that the explosives they were wearing couldn't hurt them because the bombs only explode outward, away from them. Others weren't told they were carrying bombs in their vests, just important documents. The explosives hidden on these unlucky ones are detonated remotely, by cell phone.
Smith actually arranges a sit-down with a Taliban official, who is understated and evasive when asked about the Taliban view of Islam's prohibition on killing.
Smith and the other VICE reporters remind viewers about the constant threat of peril they face on their intrepid adventures, and there's an initial sense that the show is anxious to sell its danger-brand to its young, target audience. But it's also a fact that journalists walk into these sorts of stories, and never walk out. So when Smith meets the Taliban official, and other VICE correspondents interact with the Philippine militia, it's hard to feel as though these are stunts first, journalism second.
The second episode, premiering Firday, April 12, follows North Koreans trying to escape the dictatorship on a stowaway route through Laos. The show also goes to the Indian Kashmir border with Pakistan for a story on the nuclear brinksmanship between the two countries.
In a future episode, VICE also goes to North Korea where it followed ex-NBA player Dennis Rodman and members of the Harlem Globetrotters to Pyongyang to meet with leader Kim Jong-un. Rodman and Jong-un (right), acting like old college buds, watched the Globetrotters and VICE correspondent Ryan Duffy compete against North Korea's "Dream Team." (The air date of that episode has not yet been announced.)
Current TV began a like-minded documentary series, Vanguard, in 2007, with young reporters ferreting out similar fringe stories. But Vanguard's content tended to be restrained, and less confrontational. VICE goes straight for the jugular, and its compressed, 30-minute format forces the show to get to the points quickly.
Not all VICE content is from the precipice of war and disaster. An upcoming episode goes more eclectic, taking viewers to Mauritania, a country rife with poverty and food shortages. In Mauritania the daughters of the wealthy are sent to eating camps, because being fat is desirable. Another future VICE report looks at the sumo/mixed martial arts craze that has swept Senegal.
Says Smith in a recent press release, "We've always been a little more raw in the content we make. When you're presenting a variety of totally insane stories from around the world, then that's the only style that really works. You can't present these stories in a teacup. You have to tell the story in a way that grabs the viewer and delivers a punch in the face. ... Oh, and we get to swear."
It's one thing to think and write about terrorism and war, and quite another to walk right up to it and capture it on video. VICE, at least at the start, brings viewers scenes that won't be found on other news channels. And the VICE team should be congratulated for bringing the hard images, and what feels like the wide world, into American living rooms.