GM Buys Bloggers

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

As we've chronicled here umpteen times, dozens of automotive websites and publications pull their punches on GM product reviews to maintain good relations (i.e. ad bucks, press cars and junkets) with The General. It's an understandable– if entirely lamentable– phenomena. But who'd a thunk the non-automotive blogosphere could be bought so easily? Actually, us. You may recall that Justin and I infiltrated a roomful of non-car GM junketeers– including a manic mommy from manicmommies.com. According to Automotive News [AN, sub], GM's "director of global communications technology" is still hard at it. Christopher Barger's got five full-time employees working on with "hundreds" of bloggers. Barger won't reveal his budget for blogging black bag ops, but justifies it easily. "Readers are paying more attention to individual bloggers, frankly, than they are to us as a source of credible information." Hey Chris, got that right. And while we await Barger to send us 800 words, we'd like to point out that Automotive News and GM have neglected to mention gaywheels.com, a major beneficiary of The General's largess. Surely GM and AN wouldn't want the gay community to think they were hiding or purposely downplaying their relationship, would they?

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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