Vice News Tonight

Vice News Tonight is an intriguing effort--not new, exactly, but newish. The “hangin’ out doin’ journalism” approach is easy to mock, but this new program is engaging and smart.

Given that the inaugural broadcast was fairly evenly split between pieces that provided insight, context and thoughtfully arranged information, and those that barely scratched the surface of the subject at hand, it’s too early to tell whether Vice News Tonight will become must-see viewing. But the substantial pieces certainly warrant revisiting the show in future.

Vice News Tonight lacked cohesiveness, which is a bigger problem for a show packed with so much Attitude (with the capital “A”). We’ll see how the series adjusts, or if it feels the need to, in the future. Youths with short attention spans may appreciate the lack of filler.

In its best moments, Vice News Tonight felt like a string of little amuse-bouches to whet appetites for full meals available online. In its lesser moments, it felt like Full Frontal or Last Week Tonight without the jokes and, honestly, with less on-air depth.

As hackneyed, shallow and formulaic as network newscasts can be, they still offer something in terms of immediacy and comprehensiveness that Vice News Tonight, as it’s currently constituted, can’t pretend to compete with. If you like the Vice sensibility, though, you might enjoy the show’s capsule version of it. Just don’t expect the news to be new.