May 2008

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The Tom-Tom: May 2008

May 10, 2008 in The Tom-Tom by AWcom Staff | No comments

 Autowriters.Com invites readers to submit their own Clog
(Online Column).  Your reward: a byline and an audience of your peers.  All submissions are acknowledged, queued
and used at the editor’s discretion. 

Sam Moses is a seasoned writer who covered motorsports for SI, authored two books (working on a third) and has contributed car reviews and features to numerous other print and online publications. He recently launched his own web site: www.Sammoses.com.  It is on cars and other matters and is a welcome respite from the carnival blare encounter too often on the Internet. He has more to say and AWCom plans to interview him for a forthcoming Autowriter’s Spotlight.

The Truth About The Truth About Cars’ Take
on The Truth About Newspaper Car Reviews

Your recent post on www.TheTruthAboutCars.com led me to that site, where I found an editorial titled “The Truth About Newspaper Car Reviews,” by Frank Williams. It made your editor’s note that Truth was “as they see it” just the latch to the Pandora’s Box.

The Tom-Tom: Sam MosesWilliams takes a bulb of truth and grows it into a mutant stalk.  The simple truth about newspaper car reviews is that 95 percent of the reporting in the vast majority of them (sometimes 100 percent) could come without ever driving the car. By bleating that TTAC is better because it’s purer than thou, Williams is being aggressively ignorant—maybe from inexperience, I don’t know him. I’ve just read some of the TTAC reviews.  You could fill many issues of autowriters.com with examples of horrible, inaccurate TTAC autojournalism that he thinks is clever and truthful—and I’d cite them if there were room here. They serve no more purpose for consumers, in fact less, than the shallow non-critical newspaper reviews he trashes.

He says that to get information from an engineer is a sign of bias. What an idiot! I ALWAYS try to ride with an engineer (or designer—see my Jaguar XF piece at www.sammoses.com), and have NEVER found them not to be candid, and it ALWAYS enhances the review.  Plus, you get twice the seat time.  As if a 4-hour exclusive interview with an engineer or product or PR person could somehow HURT a review.

I write for www.newcartestdrive.com because its editor, Mitch McCullough, gets it.  Declarative sentences.  For the consumer.  Dry, yes; that’s the price of the pursuit of truth—and I’m not saying it’s always there, either.  Also, btw, there’s NO ONE farther left than me when it comes to recognizing the threat of corporate media and non-critical reporting in pursuit of revenue.

What Williams is saying, is: We at TTAC are too weak to filter out the manufacturers’ spin at launches, and not smart enough to find the good technical information that’s all over the place.  So we don’t go to them.

TTAC ought to just send better journalists to the launches.

P.S. Hilarious irony.  While reading Williams’ editorial (in which he disses Chrysler), a noisy ad for the Dodge Journey popped up and blocked the graph I was reading.

 Tom-Tom rants, raves, rambles and ruminations are volunteered and express the opinions of the writer.

The Road Ahead: May 2008

May 10, 2008 in Road Ahead by AWcom Staff | No comments

The Washington Journalism Center blog, Ink Tank http://wjcblog.typepad.com/ink_tank/ carried a vision of the future of the press by Jim Jarvis, director of the interactive Journalism program at the City University of New York.

Its premise is that “the black box that used to spit out news for everyone” is being replaced by an “ecosystem” that is very flexible, drawing on many sources and information that come and go over time and create a story just for the reader/viewer.  In this news ecosystem newsrooms will be organized around topics or tags (instead of sections). Stories and topics become molecules that attract atoms: reporters, editors, witnesses, archives, commenters, and so on, all adding different elements to a greater understanding. It may not be the editor or reporter who gathers all these sources, it could just as well be the reader creating his own story.

However, Alistair Croll, blogging at Gigacom, April 6 includes in his description of 10 Ways The Internet (As We know it) Will Die, a way that seems inescapable, “sucking ourselves into a black hole of our own making.” One such possibility, granulized separation that only allows what confirms what we know to enter our silo of credibility.

Across the Finish Line: May 2008

May 10, 2008 in Across the Finish Line by AWcom Staff | No comments

Bob Storck wrote an admirable tribute to prolific racing writer William Neely who died in North Carolina March 25 from complications after heart surgery.  Among his 19 books was Stand On It which introduced the fictional character Stroker Ace, subsequently brought to film life by actor Burt Reynolds.  “Humpy” Wheeler who was Neely’s competition when he led Firestone public relations and Neely Goodyear’s, was quoted about his rival by Storck: “He was one of the icons of auto racing in the 1960s, when auto racing was really jumping forward by leaps and bounds.”  Neely also pursued an acting career and enjoyed lounging on a yacht once owned by Greta Garbo.  The family requests any donations be made to Friends of Felines www.friendsofelines.org, P.O. Box 475, Castle Hayne, NC 28429.

Wade Hoyt, Toyota Northeast PR Manager, wrote to express his fond memories of retired GM PR man and hearty IMPA supporter, Bill Winters and advised donations in his memory should be sent to West Cornwall Fire Dept., c/o Patience Lindholm, Box 220, West Cornwall, CT 06796.

Lane Changes: May 2008

May 10, 2008 in Lane Changes by Glenn Campbell | No comments

SourceInterlink has relocated the offices of Modified, Modified Luxury and Exotics and Modified Mustangs Magazines, thereby cutting loose 17 staffers but retained their respective editors: Peter Tarach, Colum Wood and Huw lestyn Evans to work from their homes. James Walrod, who covered the auto industry with CBS for eight years prior to recent layoffs in Detroit is now freelancing and can be reached in Ann Arbor at jimwalrodAThotmail.com.

Richard Saxton, long time business news reporter for radio in the Los Angeles area has launched a new blog for Edmunds.com’s Car Stock Exchange.  He describes it: “My blog is focused on news that relates to new vehicles which have corresponding shares that trade on the Car Stock Exchange, a fantasy game where traders buy, sell and sell short shares with $1,000,000 in play money with the goal of earning more than their peers by not only predicting stock action but first six month sales of new vehicles.”  He can be reached at: biznewsguruATyahoo.com. 

Veteran bi-costal auto journalist Zane Binder has selected Florida for his new home base.  His email remains the same: opossumATix.netcom.com. . . . Mark Halvorson has relocated from the Northwest to a custom publisher in Texas but is interested in freelance assignments at: markAThalvorsen.name. . . . David Barnas resigned his Chrysler PR post on good terms, he says, and AWCom awaits word of his promised new email address. . . . Tom Kowaleski, who may not have parted GM PR under the best of circumstances, has rebounded to vice president of Corporate Communications at BMW of North America.  Tom Salkowsky moves from manager of experimental marketing to manager of BMW corporate communications, with responsibility for the BMW automotive brand.

A five-line press release issued by Maserati PR in Modena, Italy announced that Marti Eulberg will become President and CEO of Maserati North America on June 1.  She comes from Jaguar Cars of North America where she was vice president, sales and marketing. . . . Popular Hot Rodding magazine technical editor Steven Rupp has moved to sister publication Camaro Performers. The Camaro magazine has gone from a 6-time frequency in 2007 to a 9-times per year publication in 2008.  Its steady growth required more staff, editor Nick Licata reports. . . .St. Louis Post Dispatch Business Editor, Andre Jackson departed the paper April 8. Daniel Wiese continues as the paper’s print and online auto editor.

Pit Notes: May 2008

May 10, 2008 in Pit Notes by Glenn Campbell | No comments

 www.SpeedStyleMagazine.com editor Bill Moore, reporting from Indianapolis, where he is spending “the year of May” prior to the big race, advises that the State of Connecticut and John Fitch are working together to resolve the costly oil contamination problem on Fitch’s property.  Also, that in addition to his own reports and photos from Indy, his E magazine is chronicling Fubish Lousewort’s return to the venue as reported by his creator, the Voice of America’s John Birchard.

Warren Brown writing in the Washington Post about the reality gap between what we see and what we get, “What we see in TV commercials and read in zoom-zoom product reviews is mostly fantasy. Some of us might have the wherewithal to buy a super-performance car. But hardly any of us driving in metropolitan America will have the opportunity to exploit its full potential.”

SAMA president Ron Beasley touts online photos of the press group’s “spectacular” April meeting featuring the 2009 Mercedes-Benz SL 63 AMG (www.SAMAonline.org) and says any current press members of other autowriter groups tempted to visit Miami’s sunny climes will be accorded a member’s discount at the group’s monthly meal meetings and special events.  The April luncheon also raised SAMA’s contribution to the Frank Washington fund to $630.00. GM VP Bob Lutz is their May speaker.

The last AWCom heard from Adam Barrera (July ’06 Newsletter: www.autowriters.com/archives), he was an energetic and enthusiastic Junior in the Jack Valenti School of Communication at the University of Houston bent on becoming an auto journalist.  Now just graduated, he asked in a recent phone call if starting out in automotive PR even if only for a company and products he believed in would jeopardize his credibility and ability to switch to auto journalism.  He said he had three offers. AWCom noted that many well-known auto writers, David E. Davis, Jr., William Jeanes and Brock Yates among them, have successfully worked both sides of the marketing street. But, Barrera was reminded, “A PR person is ‘a paid advocate in the court of public opinion.’  Your employer pays you to advance his or her interests – usually, for more than you will make starting out as a journalist.”  So far, in addition to his own site (www.highmilege.org)he remains a Category Editor for Expo TV posting reviews and blogs to encourage car owners to share their experiences with shoppers seeking honest opinions.”

The Motor Press Guild’s fourth annual PR Satisfaction Survey of auto journalists has been sent to U.S. and Canadian auto writers of record.  If you have received your invitation to participate and have questions or if you have not received an invitation and believe you should be included in the survey, contact John Rettie at John@johnrettie.com.  The survey results are valued by all major auto makers as a guide to monitoring their PR practices from year-to-year.

Construction is proceeding apace at New Jersey Motosports Park, so much so that tickets for the summers events, starting with a long weekend race schedule August 7 to 10 are on sale. Check www.njmp.com  for the complete season schedule and photo updates.

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