April 2009

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New Roads 04-2009

April 13, 2009 in New Roads by Glenn Campbell | No comments

Global Post www.globalpost.com has been operating since the first of the year seeks to be the only Internet journalism site devoted exclusively to international news and related content. In addition to advertising, it seeks to sustain itself by selling content to other outlets and paid memberships . . . . Auto racing coverage is getting a boost on a few fronts: Race Central TV has partnered for the 2009 season with MAV TV, a 24-hour HD television network, thereby expanding the global reach of Race Central’s coverage of NHRA, NASCAR and other race circuits. Race Central TV, Radio and Webcasts are produced by Denver-based Motorsports Media Group, Inc.

Race Central TV

Five veteran motorsports reporters have teamed to provide national racing news and coverage at www.RacinToday.com. They are managing editor Jim Pedley and senior writers Bill Fleischman, Rick Minter, John Sturbin and Larry Woody. Fleischman continues as assistant sports editor at the Philadelphia Daily News and Minter with the Atlanta J-C. . . . An unusual mash-up of music and motoring has been announced by Astor Motor Productions. The company describes itself as providing “motor sport enthusiasts with a host of unique and exciting opportunities to enjoy and participate in the history of vintage auto and bike racing culture.” The first of these mash-ups will be Music City Motor Jam in Nashville, Tenn, June 27. . . . ATV Television has restructured its online delivery methods for easier access to its video library and has initiated a free subscription E-newsletter, ATV Insider, covering industry news. More at info@atvtv.com

Across the Finish Line 04-2009

April 13, 2009 in Across the Finish Line by AWcom Staff | No comments

Peter Bryant, 72, talented colorful race car mechanic, engineer and designer associated with many of the storied racers and race teams in America and author of Can-Am Challenger.

The Road Ahead 04-2009

April 12, 2009 in Road Ahead by Glenn Campbell | No comments

Has the Elephant left the room? Maybe this time, the old jeremiad always good for a column may be true and “America’s Love Affair With Cars” is over.

The economy going over the cliff and auto sales with it, the domestic industry falling to number 2 or 3 in the world and the arbiters of vehicular taste diminished by a surfeit of voices may have done what foreign competition, poor quality, regulations and the digital diversions and frontiers of cyberspace did not. The economy will come back; car sales will revive but will automotive journalism rekindle the flame?

Steven Johnson, author of the best selling The Invention of Air, says the Internet’s transformation of information deserts to jungles rich with abundant and timely data is a good thing. But, will the jungle of automotive information be more like the Everglades or Louisiana bayous where it is easier to be swamped or get lost than find solid ground?

Even when print publishers, the AP and other providers of content on one side and the lords of the Interne resolve how content will be paid for, what will it mean for auto journalism?? Kendall Allen’s thoughtful Online Spin piece on The Mores of Content In The Digital Age (Media Post Publications) suggests a likely outcome of Google chief executive Eric Schmidt’s much quoted insistence that advertising will pay for content on the web and the insistence of financially-strapped publishers that consumers must help pay for the content they receive.

She says, “I absolutely would participate in and pay for certain aspects, quality thresholds, media treatments and outright increased access and portability of content. However, this no longer means the answer to just one trite question: Would I pay for my news? It’s certainly not a moral question, though it’s as complex as the best of them.” But, would she pay for automotive news, information and features?

Lee Iacocca reportedly said once back when it was a lot of money, a car on the cover of one of the then big three automotive books was worth a million dollars. Now, the return on the expense of providing a car for a magazine shoot is scrutinized. And, with the advertising dollars that support content rapidly diffusing across a thousand-fold more outlets than in the past, will there be any to underwrite auto writing that meets Allen’s standards – and will she be able to find them in Johnson’s jungle?

The Tom-Tom: Tom Kelley

April 12, 2009 in The Tom-Tom by AWcom Staff | 3 comments

Tom Kelley is a freelance auto journalist specializing in trucks, He is founder of the Southeast Automotive Media Organization and Executive Director of the Truck Writers of North America. Reach him at: tom.kelley@deadlinefactory.com

Tom Kelley- Executive Director, Truck Writers of North America

Tom Kelley
Executive Director, Truck Writers of North America

Journalism 3.0

With magazines restructuring, newspapers imploding, and our ilk being spread to the four winds, it’s probably a good time to ask, “What does the future hold for journalism?”

One direction this discussion could take is to draw the line between true journalism, and those out there with just a computer and opinion, but that’s a topic for a future column. For now we’ll stick to looking at some structural elements of the business.

To be certain, the print-on-paper channel of communications will never go completely away, just as radio didn’t kill newspapers, and television didn’t kill radio. Every method of delivery has it’s pros and cons, and as new methods become widely used, the other methods become further refined, surviving by doing what they alone can do best.

However, the days of paper reigning as the supreme delivery channel may well be reaching their sunset. Today, there’s an entire generation of readers who have never had a paper route, collected used papers as a fund-raiser, or purchased a subscription to a newspaper. A newspaper is as foreign to this generation as buggywhips were to the boomer generation. Their paper analogues range from PDA screens, to Kindles, to e-Paper, to laptop and computer screens. Adding still more complexity to the mix, each reader is likely to use some, most, or all of these analogues interchangeably. Read the rest of this entry »

Autowriters Spotlight: Paul Kaminski

April 12, 2009 in Autowriters Spotlight by Glenn Campbell | No comments

Paul Kaminski- News Director, Motor Sports Radio Network

Paul Kaminski
News Director,
Motor Sports Radio Network

Eight hundred broadcasts of weekly car reviews may not be a record but it is enough to warrant an Autowriters Spotlight for Paul Kaminski who began his nationally syndicated weekly five-minute Radio-Road-Test reports in 1993. The idea took shape in conversations with John Churan, who was with Mercedes Benz at the time. Kaminski had been broadcasting major league auto racing (NASCAR, F1, CART) for ABC Radio Sports, NBC Radio Sports after transferring from regular U.S. Army duty to the Army Reserve in 1977. It took him until 1988 to find an outlet to go beyond one-off race weekend coverage to a regular weekly auto racing show, WHWK-FM in Binghamton, New York. His Race-Talk show initially covered regional racing with a mixture of reports on the national events he would cover for the networks. He produced and hosted it while completing his studies at Ithaca College and until he was recalled to duty for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Now Race-Talk is nationally syndicated and covers all forms of major auto racing.

Kaminski’s return to civilian life in 1992 and the conversations with Churan started him thinking about a radio show that would answer what most people ask about cars: “How fast does it go?” “How does it handle”, What neat stuff does it have?” “How much does it cost?” How many miles per gallon does it get?” Answers to those questions and a run-down of standard and optional features remain the format for the show. The first Radio-Road-Test featured a Buick Le Sabre lent him by Marty Schorr, then in charge of the brand’s New York press fleet. His 800th review features the 2009 FordF-150 pickup. This year he added a KAT Accelerometer to derive real world 0-60 and braking force numbers (g’s from 30-0 hard stop) for the programs.

He believes there will always be a need for people who are able to fairly evaluate vehicles. But, how they get the word out is going to change. Compared to when he started 3 years ago, writers today, he says, need new skills: web page creation, multi-media generation (digital point and shoot still and video photography; audio recording and editing) and need to adjust their acquired writing and editing skills to the new environment. He practices what he preaches by maintaining, a blog: http://msrpk.blogspot.com; a web site: http://msrpk.com/RRTdata.htm and a podcast:  http://msrpk.com/podcast/podcast.htm. He also utilizes Twitter and LinkedIn social media. The many channels available to the consumer means many different voices to choose from and that, in Kaminski’s opinion, benefits the consumer and the market.