{"id":297625,"date":"2017-03-05T03:25:01","date_gmt":"2017-03-05T02:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/with-no-disclosure-comcast-owned-vox-runs-commercial-for-comcasts-500m-snapchat-investment\/"},"modified":"2017-03-05T03:25:01","modified_gmt":"2017-03-05T02:25:01","slug":"with-no-disclosure-comcast-owned-vox-runs-commercial-for-comcasts-500m-snapchat-investment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/with-no-disclosure-comcast-owned-vox-runs-commercial-for-comcasts-500m-snapchat-investment\/","title":{"rendered":"With No Disclosure, Comcast-Owned Vox Runs Commercial for Comcast\u2019s $500M Snapchat Investment"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5585565\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/VoxSnapchat.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-5585565\" src=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/VoxSnapchat.png\" alt=\"Vox: The Case That Snap Really Is Worth $33 Billion\" width=\"350\" height=\"419\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em><strong>Vox<\/strong> has 36 paragraphs on why <strong>Snap<\/strong> is a great investment&#8211;and none of them had room to acknowledge that <strong>Vox<\/strong>&#8216;s main investor just put half a billion dollars into the company.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>In December (<a href=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/home\/voxs-undisclosed-conflicts-of-interest-explained\/\">12\/21\/16<\/a>), FAIR noticed a bizarre set of articles at <b>Vox Media<\/b> praising the photo app <b>Snapchat<\/b> in unusually infomercial-esque tones:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201c<b>Snapchat<\/b>\u2019s $25 Billion Initial Public Offering, Explained for People Over 30\u201d (<b>Vox<\/b>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vox.com\/new-money\/2016\/10\/6\/13191000\/snapchat-25-billion-ipo\">10\/6\/16<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThe Marketing Genius Behind <b>Snap<\/b>\u2019s New Spectacles: We All Want a Pair\u201d (<b>Recode,<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.recode.net\/2016\/11\/20\/13688096\/snap-snapchat-spectacles-marketing-success\">11\/20\/16<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThe <b>Snapchat<\/b> Spectacles Craze, Explained\u201d (<b>Vox<\/b>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vox.com\/new-money\/2016\/12\/14\/13945736\/snapchat-spectacles-craze-explained\">12\/14\/16<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cYou Can Get Prescription Lenses for Your Spectacles for as Little as $29\u201d (<b>Recode<\/b>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theverge.com\/circuitbreaker\/2016\/12\/14\/13955416\/snap-inc-snapchat-spectacles-prescription-lenses-glasses?client=safari\">12\/14\/16<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Missing from these posts was any disclosure that <b>Vox<\/b> and <b>Snapchat<\/b>\u2019s parent company, <b>Snap, Inc.<\/b>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crunchbase.com\/funding-round\/8d8ca20f2e4dcf7b753ccc2acc1b9cca\">share a major investor<\/a>, the private equity firm <b>General Atlantic<\/b>. This was dodgy enough as it stood, but <b>Vox<\/b>\u2019s disclosure problem has just gotten much worse.<\/p>\n<p>On March 3, <b>Comcast<\/b>\u2014<b>Vox<\/b>\u2019s primary investor, responsible for roughly two-thirds of its entire cash intake\u2014invested a half a billion dollars in <b>Snap, Inc.<\/b> the day after its much-publicized initial public offering. Right on cue, <b>Vox<\/b>\u2019s resident libertarian writer Timothy Lee (<b>FAIR.org<\/b>, <a href=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/home\/fast-food-automation-an-old-idea-gets-new-life-to-bash-fight-for-15\/\">12\/7\/16<\/a>) took to <b>Vox<\/b>\u2019s \u201cNew Money\u201d vertical to explain why <b>Snap, Inc.<\/b> was totally worth its massive $33 billion valuation:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>CNBC<\/strong>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2017\/03\/03\/nbc-invests-500-million-in-snapchat-ipo.html\">9:36 AM, 3\/3\/17<\/a>: \u201cExclusive: <b>NBC<\/b> Invested $500 Million in <b>Snapchat<\/b> IPO as Part of Its Ambitious Investment in Digital Media\u201d<\/li>\n<li><strong>Vox<\/strong>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vox.com\/new-money\/2017\/3\/3\/14790686\/snap-worth-33-billion\">3:00 PM, 3\/3\/17<\/a>: \u201cThe Case That <b>Snap <\/b>Really Is Worth $33 Billion\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here a company, effectively a <b>Comcast<\/b> subsidiary, writes a glowing explainer on why <b>Comcast<\/b>\u2019s $500 million investment is solid and has huge upside, <i>on the same day as the investment.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>The piece is an almost uniformly positive repackaging of <b>Snap, Inc.<\/b>\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2017\/02\/02\/snap-ipo-s-1-filing.html\">S-1 filings<\/a>, with marketing-type spin on the company\u2019s outlook:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>That might seem like a crazy valuation for a company that has never turned a profit and lost $515 million in 2016. But there\u2019s actually good reason to be bullish about <b>Snap<\/b>\u2019s future&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s misleading to compare <b>Snap<\/b> to social media companies, because it isn\u2019t one, really. Instead, you should think of <b>Snap<\/b> as a pioneer in treating smartphone images, video and interactive content as a new medium in its own right&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>With a young audience open to experimentation and coveted by advertisers, <b>Snap<\/b> is ideally positioned to develop this medium and then sell ads on it. And that creates the potential for <b>Snap<\/b> to become a lot more financially successful than <b>Twitter<\/b> has been&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>The big question for <b>Snap<\/b>, then, is not whether it can make a profit. It\u2019s how big it can get before growth stalls out. And there are three reasons to think <b>Snap<\/b> could do better than <b>Twitter<\/b> on this score\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Nowhere in the piece does <b>Vox<\/b> disclose that, a few hours prior, their parent corporation had invested $500 million in the company in question.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not as if<b> Vox Media <\/b>is unaware that when writing about <b>Comcast <\/b>and <b>NBCUniversal<\/b>, it should disclose it is largely owned by them. A reprinting of an <b>NBCUniversal<\/b> press release by <b>Vox Media<\/b>\u2019s <b>Recode<\/b> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.recode.net\/2017\/3\/3\/14801168\/snap-nbc-investment-steve-burke-letter\">3\/3\/17<\/a>) the same day included the fact in its lede:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>For instance, <b>NBCUniversal<\/b> has put $400 million into <b>BuzzFeed<\/b> and $200 million in <b>Vox Media<\/b>, which owns this site<i>.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>It appears the standard for disclosure\u2014such as there is\u2014is whether <b>Vox Media<\/b> is writing explicitly about <b>Vox Media<\/b>, not when it\u2019s writing about the corporations that own most of <b>Vox Media<\/b>. Though this standard seems to shift as well: After getting pushback in 2015 for writing a fawning defense of <b>Comcast<\/b> with no disclosure (<b>FAIR.org<\/b>, <a href=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/home\/comcast-owned-vox-explains-the-great-deal-youre-getting-from-comcast\/\">9\/9\/15<\/a>), <b>Vox<\/b> did ultimately add one.<\/p>\n<p>When asked in December 2016 what its disclosure policy was,<b> Vox<\/b> managing editor Lauren Williams told FAIR, \u201cThat\u2019s something we\u2019ve been thinking about, and we plan to post one in the new year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A follow-up email Saturday asking if that disclosure policy had been drafted yet has not been answered as of publication. If it is, we will update accordingly.<\/p>\n<p><b>Vox Media <\/b>and its parent<b> NBCUniversal<\/b> have been bullish about <b>Snapchat<\/b> for some time. <b>NBC<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-nbcuniversal-snapchat-idUSKCN10J1WF\">partnered with the company<\/a> to distribute media in August 2016,<b> Vox<\/b> has featured <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Pc2aJxnmzh0\">glossy explainer videos<\/a> on its technology, and <b>Vox Media<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vox.com\/2015\/11\/23\/9772616\/vox-on-snapchat\">uses<\/a> <b>Snapchat<\/b>\u2019s Discover platform. Was this in anticipation of a major post-IPO investment? Was it because it shares a major investor in <b>General Atlantic<\/b>? It\u2019s unclear.<\/p>\n<p>What is clear is that <b>Vox Media<\/b> should disclose glaring conflicts of interest, like hyping a company its parent corporation just invested a half billion dollars in a few hours earlier.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for <strong>FAIR.org<\/strong>. You can f<\/em><em>ind him on <strong>Twitter<\/strong> at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/adamjohnsonnyc\">@AdamJohnsonNYC<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission from <a href=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/home\/with-no-disclosure-comcast-owned-vox-runs-commercial-for-comcasts-500m-snapchat-investment\/\">FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vox has 36 paragraphs on why Snap is a great investment&#8211;and none of them had room to acknowledge that Vox&#8216;s main investor just put half a billion dollars into the company. In December (12\/21\/16), FAIR noticed a bizarre set of articles at Vox Media praising the photo app Snapchat in unusually infomercial-esque tones: \u201cSnapchat\u2019s $25 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-297625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}