CarBuzz Forgets to Mention Why Tanner Foust Would Praise Volkswagen
If Tanner Foust was given the keys to a Volkswagen GTI or Golf R, and told to track it at Willow Springs, all while being filmed by Volkswagen, what do you think the VW-sponsored professional driver would say about it?
Yeah, exactly. Seems CarBuzz either didn’t know or flat-out forgot to mention that Foust is sponsored by VW when it wrote a quick piece on how Foust was touting the virtues of the two cars. A piece that appears to be based on a Volkswagen media release.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I have friendly professional relationships with at least two CarBuzz employees, though I don’t know the author of this piece, and we’ve sometimes cited them as a news source — we’ve not yet had any reason to suspect they aren’t credible.
And in the interest of fairness, it really is possible the author either didn’t know about Foust’s connections to VW, or did and just honestly forget to make mention. It would be unfair of us to accuse CarBuzz of intentionally publishing a piece that reads like advertorial content as news without any evidence.
That said, we can call them out for failing to make mention of Foust’s Volkswagen ties, with the hopes of a correction if it was an honest mistake.
Even the site’s own commenters called them out for the oversight.
We’re not calling CarBuzz out for publishing the piece — we might, on a slow news day (and thus far, today appears to be a very slow news day), pluck that story and reblog it. But we’d mention Foust’s connection to VW and remind you, the reader, that Foust is unlikely to say anything bad, at least publicly, about those cars.
And if we goofed and forgot, we’d correct as soon as possible.
I don’t have any evidence to suggest CarBuzz is in any way biased towards VW. But even assuming they aren’t, a mistake like this can cause that perception. Which is a reminder to journalists to be careful to get facts right and provide necessary context, and a reminder to readers to use critical thinking when consuming content.
[Image: Volkswagen]
Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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I always love the irony that the anti-vaxxers blithely ignore the fact that they had to have required vaccines to attend school. I won't comment on how much of their schooling was effective. As we grew older we had to get booster shots for our 1st rounds of vaccines. If you're a veteran you got vaccines for all sorts of weird stuff. Or as Jeremy Clarkson would say "diseases only heard of in a 1930's black and white movie." My union used to make tetanus shots mandatory. Cause and affect, I used to work around metal all day. I do feel sorry for then poster whose wife (I think) had extended symptoms. I was at the grocery store today. The parking lot wasn't 70% handicapped parking because we've all received polio vaccinations. Conversely, I saw people below senior citizen-aged people wearing masks. It just gets down to numbers; there is a direct correlation between the non-vaccinated and rising hospital rates. Masks form a physical barrier against airborne pathogens. The filthy non-vaccinated people need to understand that their rights end and mine begin at the end of my nose. I just want a t-shirt that says: BOOOGA! VACCINATED! BOOGA!
Here's the next thing I am planning to become outraged about: https://carbuzz.com/news/ford-bronco-owners-have-the-strangest-problem