Would you trust a journalist? When you read a review of some wildly exotic
car in your favourite glossy, are you suspicious that the journalist has been
nobbled? The writer describes the car's speed, handling, engineering and design
with pornographic prose. Reading between the lines, readers suspect that the
writer is being a little less than objective. Anyway, it's common sense;
manufacturers wouldn't loan cars to writers who pan them. Add in the reader's
jealousy and frustration at not having All Areas Access to The Garden of
Horsepower, and it soon boils over into nasty charges of corruption.
Actually, the readers are right: automotive journalists are corrupt. We were
born corrupt. Show me a car writer who can't trace his obsession with cars back
to NCAP-style crash tests on his toy cars, and I'll show you a Top Gear
presenter. While Catholics try to exorcise the stain of Original Sin, motoring
hacks spend their entire lives indulging their insatiable need for heavy metal.
Call it The First Temptation of Hot Wheels. Call it The Love that Dare Not Drive
a Fiesta. Whatever you call it, however you look at it, we are all rotten to the
core. We will do anything to get our hands on The Right Stuff.
That said, there's no "cash for adjectives" scandal linking weak
car writers and greed-driven manufacturers. I have never heard of any automotive
journalist being offered money for a favorable review, nor have I benefited from
a manufacturer's tainted largesse. It's not because car writers are so well
paid. You'd be hard-pressed to find a job offering lower pay to someone who can
(and must) write a coherent sentence. The plain truth is that such questionable
tactics are unnecessary. There are other, more subtle ways for manufacturers to
exert their influence.
Think of it this way: if BMW wanted to get the UK press to rave about the new
M3, they could airlift UV-challenged British journalists to a Spanish island,
put them up in a first class hotel, ply them with food and drink, hand them keys
to an immaculately prepared M3 and say "have fun boys". OK, Germans
are not entirely comfortable with the concept of "fun", and the
subversive nature of the trip is about as subtle as the M3's side strakes, but
the junket did happen. And I don't recall reading a single negative review.
You could argue that the M3 WAS terrific, so who cares who pays for the
sybaritic test drive? Ah, but what if the M3 was a dog? Would the cosseted
journalists have mentioned the crap on the carpet? And if such junketry isn't
really an issue, why do several of my US newspapers specifically forbid it?
Readers raised not to bite the hand that feeds are forgiven for thinking twice
when they read reviews of nasty cars that do little more than "gum"
them to death.
All publications want access to the hot new cars. They want a test drive or
spy shot, computer mock-up, something, anything before their rivals. Commercial
necessity gives manufacturers power over both the car mags and their jobbing
journos. Again, I've never heard of a manufacturer saying: "I'll give
you our latest car as long as you play nice". The relationship between
carmakers and the press is as complicated as that of an alcoholic and his wife.
But co-dependency doesn't change the basic implication: screw us this time, and
we'll screw you next.
This unspoken "understanding" doesn't result in outright lies. A
magazine's credibility is one of the attributes that make it attractive to the
manufacturer. It simply sets limits to what can and cannot be said. More
specifically, there's a "gentleman's agreement" not to get nasty.
Criticize our car, just don't dismiss it. It's a style thing. Hence, the number
of Jeremy Clarksons in the field. And it's no surprise that even THAT one has
moved on to other subjects.
Anyway, as far as corruption goes, it's not as bad as some may suspect, and
not as good as many would hope. The junkets and controlled supply of cars do not
severely curtail the writer's ability to express their enthusiasm for all things
automotive. Some publications turn a blind eye to the practice; others take
measures to limit their effect. Either way, readers still get to live
vicariously through the passionate and deeply flawed perspective of morally
suspect, car-crazed hacks.