I’ve often felt the same way about this site, but I still come back. Look at it this way…I still pay for my Automobile subscription, and I’m not paying here. Fun stuff.

It really depends on the individual at which point that the vocation becomes secondary to economic practicality — only the truly wealthy can stand their ground and stay pure.

“Yeah, but at least Pfizer pulled the Jarvik ads because they were misleading.”

Nobody cared about that. They were all upset that they used a body double to show him rowing a boat because the good Doctor has never touched an oar before.

Long live the New Flesh.

It’s just Jeep, and those of us who know better still do.

IMO the more contrast that exists between TTAC and the sell-outs, the better of it is for you (short, medium and) long-term.

This is as bad as when C/D sold their soul (not for the first time) to Ford for their Fusion ad campaign comparing the car to the Accord and Camry

You know things are bad when MT starts to look like the best of the four mags.

I’m interested in this mid-five digit payday you are speaking of, and have been know to turn a phrase.

Selling out, but who’s buying?

-Jonny-

“Imagine you were a journo getting told to do a rewrite by this person who is technically and historically clueless. Obviously the journos do it or don’t mind being edited so long as there’s a check at the end, because the bylines haven’t changed.”

This is an inevitable problem, and it exists on this forum as well. When I was at Car and Driver in the 1970s, we had two people, and two people only, who were technically/technologically astute: Pat Bedard and Don Sherman. They were engineers who had turned themselves into excellent writers as well, and it truly pained them to watch those of us–including Brock Yates, me, William Jeanes, Warren Weith, Jean Shepherd, Charlie Fox and others–whose technical savvy consisted of fables, legends, myths and misinformatin we had amassed over years as “sports-car enthusiasts.”

We were pretty good writers, though, and good editors on some cases. So we basically ran the show, and Pat and Don did the best they could to keep us on track and accurate. Often they failed and could do no more than go home and punch the wall.

I don’t think any of us were “technologically and historically clueless,” and neither is Jean Jennings, but it’s the way car magazines have always been and will always be written and run. As well as forums such as this one. And as well as TV shows; do you think Jeremy Clarkson is a brilliant engineer?

Indeed, one of the problems with Car and Driver today is that it is run by a bunch of engineers and technologists who are very smart about car design and engineering but have little creative imagination and not enough of the ethical fire that honest-to-god journalists and editors do have.

http://finance.yahoo.com/loans/article/104561/11-Worst-Cars-Consumer-Reports

The producers have little or no regard for getting their facts straight or even correct for that matter. Jennings is one of the so-called experts extolling the virtues of these cars, and easily proves she hasn’t got any more clues than the producers. It shocked me when I saw one of these shows how little the editor of Automobile actually knew.

Perhaps she’s a lot better at being an office manager and an avid self-promoter. I haven’t purchased Automobile since I saw those shows some years ago. Who needs it? Remember, it’s always management that’s to blame for screwups and attitude. I’m old, I’ve been there in industry and office. Jennings is management.

Imagine you were a journo getting told to do a rewrite by this person who is technically and historically clueless. Obviously the journos do it or don’t mind being edited so long as there’s a check at the end, because the bylines haven’t changed.

I DON’T need to read that stuff, thanks.

Yeah, but at least Pfizer pulled the Jarvik ads because they were misleading.

“I couldn’t care less about Ms. Jennings’ dress sense, intelligence or personality. (Most major league PR people are intelligent, articulate, attractive, clever and charming.) I care that Ms. Jennings has sold her editorial independence to the car makers. It makes all auto journalists look bad.”

Robert, you aren’t by any chance under the impression that this is a revelation? You are aware that the absolute top names among “automotive journalists” earn huge amounts of money writing press kits, like mid-five digits per kit? When you get the 150-page Mazda MX-5 press kit, whether in the three-ring binder of yore or on a CD, full of information on the material used for the main-bearing inserts and the volumetric efficiency of the engine and the five-link rear suspension and the exact degrees of deflection in each axis, that wasn’t written by some Missouri Journalism School kid in the PR department, it was written by…well, everybody reading this forum would recognize their names instantly.

Of course the difference here is that Jean has signed her work.

It’s disheartening to see the E-i-C selling her objectivity up the river in such a manner. It also mines away at her credibility to be boosting a vehicle that, by consensus of basically everyone except those snuggled up against Chrysler’s bosom, is a rolling turd.

Jean is a very nice, and very smart, lady, but it’s unfortunate that her choice of duds, hairdo, etc. make this look like a Saturday Night Live segment.

I couldn’t care less about Ms. Jennings’ dress sense, intelligence or personality. (Most major league PR people are intelligent, articulate, attractive, clever and charming.) I care that Ms. Jennings has sold her editorial independence to the car makers. It makes all auto journalists look bad.