These initiatives were overseen by “Chief People Officer” Daisy Auger-Dominguez, former “Global Head of Diversity Staffing” at Google, whose 2020 inaugural staff email at Vice outlined her goal of “eradicating inequity in the workplace, and putting a stop to the psychological, economic, and emotional damage experienced by underrepresented, disempowered, and marginalized employees.” Training for such a task would be instituted, she told Adweek, but this was proving difficult at Vice because “you can’t deliver anti-racism training if people haven’t recognized that they’re racist.” 

Auger-Dominguez would do a small media tour announcing the creation of a “DEI Dashboard,” an internal website managing diversity hiring initiatives, with the Orwellian promise to serve as “a single source of truth for teams across Vice Media Group.” ...

The cult-like ideology that overwhelmed Vice wasn’t the reason it collapsed, of course, but it was a major factor, one almost entirely ignored in mainstream media autopsies. If one wants to remain a multibillion-dollar colossus, loved by investors and giant corporate clients, one can’t afford to service only a narrow, radical vision of the world. Indeed, it’s rare for a company producing hit shows and must-read content to face extinction.