Comments on: Passing Scene http://autowriters.com/blog/passing-scene/ The right info to the right writers who write about cars. Sun, 02 Oct 2011 17:01:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Jack Baruth http://autowriters.com/blog/passing-scene/comment-page-1/#comment-649 Jack Baruth Fri, 02 Jul 2010 04:06:09 +0000 http://autowriters.com/blog/?p=995#comment-649 Larry, Ever notice how nobody's trying to write the next "Moby Dick"? Have you noticed that the Internet Age hasn't produced so much as a single pretender to the title of Great American Novel? What about a poet to rival Whitman, Eliot, or even Dos Passos? Seen any of that around? Yet there are hundreds, nay, thousands of "automotive journalists" online. Allow me to explain to you why that is the case. You folks set the bar so low that an illiterate high-school blogger could step over it. The "professional" automotive journalists, with a very few exceptions (Setright, Baxter, Paul Frere) wrote such laughable, nonsensical, bought-and-paid-for-by-the-industry-garbage that every kid in America thinks he can do it better. Half of them are right. The reason nobody's trying to beat Melville at his own game is simple: he was too damn good for a public-school Twitter addict to surpass in 140 characters or less. The guy who writes the "Wheels" section for the _Springfield Plow and Examiner_, on the other hand, is a fat, slow-moving target, dulled to stupidity by a thousand drunken press events and lulled to obsolescence by the sweet, sweet nectar of automotive PR. How many of your elite corps of automotive journalists hold a race license? How many can fix a modern car? How many can swap out a freakin' wheel bearing by themselves? You and your ilk made it easy. Time to retire. If you don't feel like retiring, don't worry; the marketplace of ideas will take you out back and put you out of your misery. Larry,

Ever notice how nobody’s trying to write the next “Moby Dick”? Have you noticed that the Internet Age hasn’t produced so much as a single pretender to the title of Great American Novel? What about a poet to rival Whitman, Eliot, or even Dos Passos? Seen any of that around? Yet there are hundreds, nay, thousands of “automotive journalists” online.

Allow me to explain to you why that is the case. You folks set the bar so low that an illiterate high-school blogger could step over it. The “professional” automotive journalists, with a very few exceptions (Setright, Baxter, Paul Frere) wrote such laughable, nonsensical, bought-and-paid-for-by-the-industry-garbage that every kid in America thinks he can do it better. Half of them are right.

The reason nobody’s trying to beat Melville at his own game is simple: he was too damn good for a public-school Twitter addict to surpass in 140 characters or less. The guy who writes the “Wheels” section for the _Springfield Plow and Examiner_, on the other hand, is a fat, slow-moving target, dulled to stupidity by a thousand drunken press events and lulled to obsolescence by the sweet, sweet nectar of automotive PR.

How many of your elite corps of automotive journalists hold a race license? How many can fix a modern car? How many can swap out a freakin’ wheel bearing by themselves?

You and your ilk made it easy. Time to retire. If you don’t feel like retiring, don’t worry; the marketplace of ideas will take you out back and put you out of your misery.

]]> By: Larry Carley http://autowriters.com/blog/passing-scene/comment-page-1/#comment-618 Larry Carley Fri, 11 Jun 2010 19:33:09 +0000 http://autowriters.com/blog/?p=995#comment-618 I fear traditional journalists are an endangered species, myself included. The trouble is, anybody can be a "journalist" today. Anybody can write literally anything and post it on a blog, forum or website -- and nobody knows if what they've written is true or not, accurate or not, or biased or not. The wiki mentality has undermined the basic process of publishers paying qualified experienced people to write accurate, informative articles. My area of expertise is automotive, and I can't believe all the inaccurate, misleading and downright dangerous information that's published as gospel on internet automotive forums and blogs. Automotive ezines and newsletters still have some degree of journalistic objectivity and accuracy, but with no meaningful budgets to pay staff or freelance writers, I see them resorting more and more to running press releases and PR fluff as "news." I fear traditional journalists are an endangered species, myself included. The trouble is, anybody can be a “journalist” today. Anybody can write literally anything and post it on a blog, forum or website — and nobody knows if what they’ve written is true or not, accurate or not, or biased or not.

The wiki mentality has undermined the basic process of publishers paying qualified experienced people to write accurate, informative articles.

My area of expertise is automotive, and I can’t believe all the inaccurate, misleading and downright dangerous information that’s published as gospel on internet automotive forums and blogs. Automotive ezines and newsletters still have some degree of journalistic objectivity and accuracy, but with no meaningful budgets to pay staff or freelance writers, I see them resorting more and more to running press releases and PR fluff as “news.”

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