Exclusive: Media company recently signed lucrative deal with Saudi government-controlled MBC Group

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Editors in Vice’s news division actively welcomed the piece, Lubbock said, as it fitted with the outlet’s track record of reporting on LGBTQ+ rights, autocratic regimes and the Middle East.

    In another recent example, a film in the Vice world news Investigators series about Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman was deleted from the internet after being uploaded.

    Five years ago the company paused its work in Saudi Arabia following the state-backed murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi but has since enthusiastically embraced the kingdom.

    This time around, rather than pulling back from the country and enabling such pieces to be published, Vice, which last week was bought out of bankruptcy, is rapidly expanding in Saudi Arabia, as part of a wider strategy of shifting away from news and towards lifestyle content.

    Until recently, ordinary Saudis feared a visit from the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, a powerful religious authority that enforced strict Islamic morals and cracked down on youth culture.

    Saudi Arabia’s national investment fund has already bought Newcastle United, managed to wrestle partial control of golf and is paying unprecedented sums to lure some of the world’s top footballers to the country.


    I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • Jack@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Editors in Vice’s news division actively welcomed the piece, Lubbock said, as it fitted with the outlet’s track record of reporting on LGBTQ+ rights, autocratic regimes and the Middle East.

      Bad bot. The sentences before and after this are needed to understand the quoted sentence:

      “Their reporting claimed the Saudi state is helping families to harass and threaten transgender Saudis based overseas.”

      […]

      “However, publication of the article was repeatedly postponed and then cancelled at the last minute. Multiple sources at Vice said it was pulled after a high-level intervention by senior Vice managers, who said its publication could pose a threat to the safety of the company’s staff working in Saudi Arabia.”