Do yourself a favor and watch this VICE News video on ISIS. Warning: there are some very graphic images at times.
[youtube http://youtu.be/AUjHb4C7b94]What amazes me the most about the video is how perfectly normal and perfectly matter of fact most of the ISIS people seem. Well, until they cut off your head or crucify you. It’s almost surreal. Their daily experience is so far removed from what we are used to and the veneer on the horrors that they are perpetrating only cracks every once in a while. What especially got me was the policing of the Sharia Law stuff. So polite, almost courteous. So deadly. It gives me chills.
VICE News is doing some amazing reporting around the world. Their in-depth reporting is around the best I’ve seen. It’s what real reporting should be.
Everything I’ve read on Vice News is that they’re great, they just over dramatize many of the topics they cover. That, and the founder of Vice is a pathological liar, but that doesn’t mean Vice News lies. I think they’re doing good work going places most media won’t go to cover stories and I think I’m ok with them adding a little drama to it to get viewers to pay attention because most of the topics they cover like this one are deadly serious. I compare it to The Daily Show or Last Week Tonight in that they use humor to address topics the same way instead of drama.