Car Reviews: Automotive Journalism 101

I started buying enthusiast car magazines with paper route money when I was 12 years old.

Don't remind me, was that in 1960?

Car and Driver, Road and Track, Motor Trend, and Hot Rod magazines from the 1960's filled a large closet.

Disenchantment began for me, an admirer of Euro-sports cars like Jags, MG's, bathtub Porsches, Austin-Healeys, and Aston Martins, when successive Car-of-the-Year honors went to Detroit's whimpy "import fighters" (Corvairs, Pontiac Tempests and American Motors Ramblers).

Sure, there was a separate award for imports, buried on page 48.

In late November of 1963, I was 15 years old and worshiped cars. But I was sure of one thing: automotive journalism was seriously flawed.

Everybody has seen hundreds of brand-friendly car reviews.

They run in print media and on the web.

The auto "reviews" in local daily newspapers consist primarily of canned stories, press releases, and manufacturer-supplied stock photographs.

Critics have asserted that conflicts of interest compromise the value of mainstream print magazines and websites that rate cars for enthusiasts.

A recent comment on autoblog.com sums it up:

"I stopped reading the big three car mags as all they do is astroturf for the Car industry that are their bread and butter. Hard to find them saying anything negative."

It would be easy to dismiss these well funded mainstream publications and discredit their point of view as shills for the house. But to succeed as consumers, we need inputs from multiple sources: let's delve further into auto journalism.

You Can Drive My Car

Most car reviewers have a pretty stable work routine. An automobile company provides a "press car", usually for a week. The journalist takes the car for a weekend spin and commutes in it, producing one to three articles, depending on the output medium.

Press cars are not run of the mill assembly line models intercepted on their way to a dealership. The journalist pool consists of special pre-production test drive cars, specially prepped for the road test.

At a special shop, panel gaps and alignments are straightened, squeaks and rattles eliminated, some engines are up-tuned, and detailing is done.

Some writers have industry provided transportation most of the year.

Aspiring automotive writers long for the day when they will be deemed worthy of press cars.

Here at texas-cars-and-dealerships, I have to rent any car I road test. This creates a barrier to entry that insulates the manufacturers further.

You Won't Like Me When I'm Angry

Auto industry marketing budgets represent some of the biggest advertising dollars available. On Madison avenue, ad agency executive careers rise and fall at the behest of automotive accounts.

A full page ad in Car and Driver’s print version could cost over $100k.

In 2005, General Motors Vice Chairman and chief new-product guru Bob Lutz warned publishers that unflattering reviews of his work might result in reallocation of the company's approximately $3 billion marketing budget.

It wasn't long before an opportunity to test this strategy arrived.

A prominent writer at The Los Angeles Times wrote a review of the 2005 Pontiac G6 which was very unflattering to GM management. This journalist went out of his way to personally insult Mr. Lutz and Chair/CEO Rick Wagoner.

On April 7, 2005, General Motors canceled its estimated $10 million worth of advertising with the paper.

Southern California's 100-plus GM dealers, which spend even more at the Times than Detroit, began canceling their Times ads too.

Several months later the money was restored. But the message was heard throughout the car writer community: be there or be square.

In reality, auto makers have been pulling advertising over negative car reviews since the early days.

Today, the issue is no longer physical separation of editorial and marketing content, but the degree of integration. Anybody else hate text content based internet pop-up ads which bloom in your face when you mouse over? You won't find that neospam here.

Now we see Coca-Cola ads running in the background on American Idol and shameless General Motors product placements star in the big budget animated blockbuster film Transformers.

The blurring of promotion and content is almost complete, and is not confined to automobile publications.

Wine and Dine

Automotive journalism doesn't pay very well, but people enter the field because they love being around cars.

The majority of American auto writers are freelancers, and they typically make subsistence wages, if they're published regularly.

Expense accounts from the publisher are minimal.

Car industry sponsored junkets, called press trips, accompany new model launches worldwide. Successful writers receive paid airfare, hotels, meals, and ego building receptions.

Some companies also donate gifts, although this is considered to be borderline unethical.

Enthusiast journalists will enjoy flogging fast, expensive cars around the circuit on sponsor funded track days.

The resulting reviews are professional and polished, and contain well researched facts. They just avoid any dark spots like long term reliability or excessive depreciation.

Cupholder placement and other minor interior fit and finish flaws are convenient scapegoats, dragging attention away from uncritical acceptance of larger issues, like maybe real world gas mileage.

Exile on Main Street

So advertising influences content, and writers who do not conform have historically been weeded out.

In the old print-only days, automotive outcasts had to go to some other industry, with a less monolithic structure, to remain journalists.

Today they start websites. Automobile websites.

These writers are beginning to have some trend-setting influence.

This is illustrated by the catfight between mainstream website Edmunds.com, widely respected for factual information on the car industry, and thetruthaboutcars.com, founded by one of auto journalism's dissidents.

Here at texas-cars-and-dealerships.com, the site is ad supported, but the content is 100% independent. While I will never be rude or vulgar, criticism comes naturally. When I see quality or improvement, I will applaud.

On my other website, air-purifier-power.com, my best paying advertiser is the brand I single out for scathing criticism.

Many of my model reports are generated by reading the web, sometimes without driving the car. After spending almost my entire life on the highway, I don't need to drive a car for a week to know it.

This is especially true for non-performance family cars. Sales numbers and trends, customer retention statistics, and owner feedback speak volumes to the informed.

Increasingly, web video provides head-to-head track footage of performance cars.

And I still read Car and Driver, Road and Track, and Motor Trend.

I hope that over time, my readers will realize that this method is far superior to the mainstream model. Every source is exhaustively studied, from manufacturer web sites to mainstream media to blogs, user forums, and dissident websites.

Forum posts and opinion sites offering feedback from actual owners are among the best resources.

Want a different perspective? Try finding a Honda review in The Detroit News.

I read thetruthaboutcars.com, and Autoextremist.com, but I use and respect Edmunds.com.

I like Consumer Reports (CR), despite many flaws.

To avoid the appearance of impropriety, CR accepts no car advertising and purchases test vehicles anonymously. They operate the only independent test track.

Consumer Reports offers very useful and less biased (but not "unbiased") tests and data.

Survival of the Fittest

I would love to be able to provide totally unbiased automotive tests, based on skilled drivers, all kinds of conditions, with a statistically significant sampling of real factory cars.

It can't happen.

Well researched objective content can be provided without insulting the industry.

In time I think car industry executives will take a page from the recording industry's failure to suppress peer-to-peer file sharing. As an increasing number of car customers become internet aware, a new automotive marketing model must evolve.

The message for consumers here is to consult a variety of sources and learn about the industry that absorbs the largest percentage of discretionary income, before the next car buying decision.

End Auto Journalist Bias, Return to Car Buyer Beware

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