Gawker, a gossip site that openly traffics in rumor, innuendo, and in many cases straight-up bullshit, and whose founder, Nick Denton, has
been
slapped with a class-action lawsuit by
former interns for violating federal wage laws, recently published
an inaccurate and irresponsible story about VICE’s workplace. The
story is abysmal “journalism” even by Gawker’s standards, relying on
a handful of disgruntled (and of course off-the-record) alleged
ex-employees, some of whom reference VBS.tv, a website that hasn’t
existed for more than four years. Gawker has been actively trolling
for these sources since at least February of this year, when they
published a post on their website hoping to draw people into
collaborating with them.
Loath as we are to respond to their typical form of base, hit-job
journalism, this time we feel we must send a message and correct the
record, ignoring the author’s obvious and embarrassing emotional
vendetta against this company, its success, and its senior
management.
VICE currently has more than 400 full-time employees in North
America. As they do in all businesses, entry-level salaries range by
department and are competitive with comparable emerging media
companies in the digital space. All VICE full-time employees
participate in a complete package of employee benefits: full health
insurance (medical, dental, vision), life insurance, disability
insurance, two weeks of paid vacation per year, ten paid holidays,
five paid sick days, a maternity and paternity program (12 weeks of
paid maternity leave, one week of paid paternity leave), a summer
Fridays program, and a variety of company discounts and offers,
including a commuter tax-free benefit, flexible health spending and
dependent-care accounts, and a 401(k) program.
In addition to this compensation package, all VICE employees who
meet a length-of-service criterion of two years are automatically
enrolled in the company’s Stock Appreciation Rights (SAR) program, a
stock-based compensation plan whereby employees receive payments
based on the value of VICE stock in a liquidity event. The VICE SAR
program was launched in late 2013, with long-term employees
grandfathered into the program and granted SAR options that
recognized their dedication and excellence for the early growth
years of the company. As VICE rises in value, so do the value of the
SARs, and all employees in the program benefit. This is, of course,
100 percent contrary to Gawker’s assertion in their smear job. But
then again, since when did Gawker actually care about the truth?
VICE is proud of its success, and proud of all of its employees.