The MTV News archive website has entered the digital dark ages. It appears that all the archive reports are no longer available, and the MTVNews.com website now redirects to MTV.com.
A number of former writers have taken to X, formerly Twitter, to vent their frustrations. “So, MTVnews.com no longer exists,” wrote Patrick Hosken. “Eight years of my life are gone without a trace. All because it didn’t fit some executives’ bottom lines. Infuriating is too small a word.”
MTV News was launched in the ’80s with the program The Week In Rock, hosted by long-time Rolling Stone writer/music critic Kurt Loder. Loder was the first official MTV News correspondent. In 1990, the opening riff to Megadeth’s Peace Sells became the main opening theme.
In the 2000s, MTV News began publishing on the MTVNews.com website. A short-lived move to longer form journalism occurred in 2015, only to be restructured with a greater focus on video two years later.
Further downsizing would happen, with MTV News closed in May 2023 due to financial problems at parent company Paramount Global.
“I worked for MTV News (freelance & staff) from 2000 till 2015,” Ryan J. Downey wrote on X. “Some of the greatest experiences of my career and some of the greatest colleagues. To quote the great Hannibal Buress: WACK.”
The closure of MTVNews.com means that thousands of articles and interviews dating back to the ’90s have now been lost.
