CarKey's "Crash" Corrigan Swills Swag

Yesterday, I called Autoblog (AB) to task for blogging pistonhead paraphernalia without disclosing whether they received swag for their efforts. AB jeffe Damon Lavrinc revealed his team follows AOL’s strict policy: no freebies and return any review items post post. So I removed my post. And now I’ve found Michael Banovsky’s over-punctuated, redundantly-named blog Cars, Culture, and Etc. Banovsky asserts that he’s not on the gravy train, and when he is, he donates the resulting air miles to Doctors Without Borders (perhaps there’s a Barnes and Noble nearby?). Underneath the post, Carkeys.ca’ s Kevin “Crash” Corrigan defends pocketing payola. “Whilst I applaud you for donating your air miles to charity, I think that I should say something from the flip side of the coin. Unlike the print guys, us web-based journos are rarely given ‘expensive’ gifts. In nearly 5 years of writing, the most pricey gift that I have received is a toy car. In fact, I’ve been given a few of them (Approx 6-7). Now I collect models cars, as do probably most most of us car guys, so that’s quite nice. On the other hand, does anyone truly believe that any of us could be brought off with a $10-30 model car?? Let’s look at this from another angle…I worked in the building trade for several years, and every year we were given bottles of booze from the suppliers. My father who owned a large company and often received crates of the stuff!”

“Now, like I said, I applaud you for handing over your air miles to charity (Mind you, I did note that you, as a newspaper journo, received more air miles in one year than I gathered in 5, but that’s another story!). Personally, I plan to use mine to take my wife along with me on one of the trips (we’ve managed one so far to New York). After all, I leave her to fend for the animals and shovel the snow when I go away, so I think that it’s only fair to her. You’re young Michael and you might change your view on this once you’re married and have to listen to, “You going away again and leaving me to look after everything again”!

“I think that you’re flogging a dead horse for no reason with this. Perks will always be a factor in business, so dig at the guys who get the fancy leather jackets, computers, and stuff like that by all means (I don’t know of anyone who’s received that kind of stuff, if you do, then by all means name them and shame them!), but leave us little guys out of it please. The general public looks down on us for all these “supposed freebies”, and all it does is create bad feelings for absolutely no reason.”

None whatsoever?