Stop Press! Autoblog Embroiled In Sexist Scandal! Bentley Banged!

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Jeff Glucker, a.k.a. jglucker, had his head handed to him by the Twitter mob. It must have been the little head. The emasculated editor of Autoblog caved in to the rabid rabble and sacrificed a supposedly sexist headline. What happened?

London’s Daily Mail chronicled a pile-up of (interestingly mostly blue) supercars in downtown Monte Carlo under the headline “Oops, it’s a £700,000 prang… Hapless blonde crashes her Bentley into a Merc, Porsche, Ferrari and Aston Martin.”

The British tabloid milked the blonde stereotype for all it’s worth (or not):

“This was the moment when a woman driver caused a £700,000 five-car pile-up as her Bentley collided with a Mercedes, Ferrari, Porsche and Aston Martin. Disaster struck as the hapless blonde negotiated the traffic around the Place du Casino in her £250,000 Bentley Azure.”

The Daily Mail could not possibly pass-up on the story. After all, according to Wikipedia, the Daily Mail “was, from the outset, a newspaper for women, being the first to provide features especially for them, and is still the only British newspaper whose readership is more than 50% female.” It even has a column called “Femail today.” The paper demonstrated its sensitivity towards its female readership by regaling it with statistics:

“Scientists at the University of Michihan (sic) looked at 6.5million car crashes and found a higher than expected number of accidents between two female drivers. They also discovered that women have a tough time negotiating crossroads, T-junctions and slip roads.”

Jeff Glucker also could not say no. At Autoblog, he ran the story under the headline “Female driver causes supercar catastrophe in Monte Carlo.” The Autoblog associate editor, who according to his Twitter profile loves “cars, dachshunds, good drinks and the Caribbean,” carefully resisted the allure of any alliterations beyond “causes catastrophe.” Where this reporter would have tinkered with something along the lines of “Blundering buxom blondes brutalize big buck Bentley, smash several supercars ,” Jeff didn’t even mention “blonde.”

Ever the car guy, he questioned the reported damage estimates “in the neighborhood of $65,000” which according to Jeff’s trained eye (and the opinion of his wiener dog) seem “laughably low.” That restraint did not spare Jeff the wrath of the PC-armed PC crowd. The dogloving autoblogger found himself at the receiving end of a twitter riot: “What’s w/ the sexist ‘female driver causes catastrophe’” was tweeted and reteweeted several times, thereby spreading the chauvinistic copy all over the twitterverse.

Then Glucker did something we would never do here at TTAC: He caved in. Changing “Female driver causes supercar catastrophe in Monte Carlo” to an insipid “Driver causes supercar catastrophe in Monte Carlo” did not mollify the masses.

Now he hears from his own readers: “Jeff Glucker, you have no spine.”

PS: We would not have even noticed the story and could have saved our vindictive vitriol for other occasions, would we not have received an email with the subject line “Would ttac.com change headlines or content to please complainers?”

Our answer: No.

If we make factual mistakes, we fix them. If we hurt feelings – tough.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Bertel Schmitt Bertel Schmitt on Jul 31, 2011

    We have received many requests (open and backchannel) to moderate this thread. There are minefields even the most gutsy moderator won’t walk into. This is one of them. In the future, it would be highly appreciated if religion can be kept out of these discussions. Politics seem to be inseparable from cars, but dareisayit, a Toyota Hilux serves Taliban commandos and Benedictine monks alike, with utter disregard to race, creed or color.

  • Yeahbeer Yeahbeer on Aug 02, 2011

    Love this statement! If we make factual mistakes, we fix them. If we hurt feelings – tough.

  • El scotto Oh, ye nattering nabobs of negativism! Think of countries like restaurants. Our neighbors to the north and south are almost as good and the service is fantastic. They're awfully close to being as good as the US. Oh the Europeans are interesting and quaint but you really only go there a few times a year. Gents, the US is simply the hottest restaurant in town. Have to stand in line to get in? Of course. Can you hand out bribes to get in quicker? Of course. Suppliers and employees? Only the best on a constant basis.Did I mention there is a dress code? We strictly enforce it. Don't like it? Suck it.
  • 1995 SC At least you can still get one. There isn't much for Ford folks to be happy about nowadays, but the existence of the Mustang and the fact that the lessons from back in the 90s when Ford tried to kill it and replace it with the then flavor of the day seem to have been learned (the only lessons they seem to remember) are a win not only for Ford folks but for car people in general. One day my Super Coupe will pop its headgaskets (I know it will...I read it on the Internet). I hope I will still be physically up to dropping the supercharged Terminator Cobra motor into it. in all seriousness, The Mustang is a.win for car guys.
  • Lorenzo Heh. The major powers, military or economic, set up these regulators for the smaller countries - the big guys do what they want, and always have. Are the Chinese that unaware?
  • Lorenzo The original 4-Runner, by its very name, promised something different in the future. What happened?
  • Lorenzo At my age, excitement is dangerous. one thing to note: the older models being displayed are more stylish than their current versions, and the old Subaru Forester looks more utilitarian than the current version. I thought the annual model change was dead.
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