Today, Jalopnik’s Matt Hardigree announced his intention to disregard manufacturer embargoes, and I offered some commentary on the matter. I support Matt’s actions, although in an era where very few people are capable of recognizing anything other than a braying binary declaration of total adoration as “support” I doubt he’ll thank me for it.
I’m slightly frustrated with our industry this week for other reasons, however. I’m depressed that Jalopnik harvested 664,000 clicks out of Paul Walker’s death — but I’m even more depressed that Doug DeMuro made a deliberate attempt to raise his profile on the back of Paul’s death with a spectacularly uninformed statement, only to walk it back in the most pansy-assed and low-profile manner possible fewer than forty-eight hours afterwards. There’s nothing quite as cringe-inducing as the combination of naked ambition, a desperate need to be liked, and a paralyzing fear of saying anything at all worth remembering, all in one person. As stupid as the CGT statement was, I’d have respected him for standing behind it, or for admitting he was wrong. But I’ve learned the hard way that if you wait around for the average dude to do something worth respecting, you’ll wait a long time.
At least I can take comfort in the relative insignificance of automotive journalism. We may be idiots, we may be cowards, we may be openly for sale to the highest bidder in an auction where the largest sum mentioned wouldn’t purchase a new Camry, but at least we aren’t very widely read. Want proof?
Some time ago, a young lady of rather plain looks and testy disposition wrote a CNN citizen-journalist report concerning her recent trip to India. She wrote it for free, of course: CNN’s iReporters are not paid, nor are their contributions reviewed in any way by CNN. The post, which is badly written even by the standards of my industry, is a rambling complaint about how people tried to jerk off onto her while she was riding on buses. She claims it gave her PTSD and caused her to drop out of school.
Well, I don’t doubt that her story is true; I’ve worked with enough fellows from the subcontinent to know that they have some real freakazoids among the billion-plus inhabitants over there. I know this because the fellows with whom I work, who are often plenty freaky themselves, love to complain about the wackjobs they left behind when they boarded the 747 to the land of the H1-B and the home of the depraved. Nor does India have the exclusive franchise on masturbating in the general direction of women — and this is the part of this story where I apologize, rather belatedly, to Erika Eleniak and her Playmate Of The Month pictorial from July of 1988. To be fair, I didn’t actually do anything in the presence of Miss Eleniak herself, but it’s not like I had the chance to be in her presence. I don’t know what I would have done in the presence of Miss Eleniak. Well, that’s not true. I know what I’d have done: stare at the ground and mumble something about Herman Melville. I know this because when I was on a study date with the most beautiful girl in my English Composition class the following year, that’s what I did, and she wasn’t even close to Erika Eleniak.
It frustrates me that I cannot remember her name. I think it was Julie Stephens but I’m not totally sure. If you’re reading this, girl whose name I cannot quite recall, holla.
Anyway, I’m wandering from the point, and the point is that this tossed-off post about tossing-off in India has, since August, managed to come up with
- 1,186,641
VIEWS - 1,831
COMMENTS - 107K
SHARES
and that’s copied directly from the post as of a moment ago.
So. An iReport, written for free, is massively, hugely, bigger than the biggest story in automotive journalism at any given time. Sure, we occasionally get million-view stories in this business, although they are so few as to be individually noteworthy… but the comment count is beyond our ken, and the share count is staggering.
One hundred and seven thousand people thought it was worth sharing on Facebook.
The population of a reasonably-sized city.
Shared a report, written for free, that briefly appeared somewhere down the fold on CNN.
My Performance Car Of The Year story, which is kind of a big deal around here, has 6,100 Facebook shares right now. That’s one for every sixteen shares the guys-touched-my-ass-in-India story got.
That’s automotive journalism right there.
Small potatoes.
But it’s all we’ve got, so let’s be as vicious as possible about it!
I somehow have missed that India article..until now.
Damnit.
Jack,
one thing to keep in mind about that CNN “iReport”- that’s simply the kind of story which goes (OMG I hate this term but I’m about to use it) viral on farcebook time and time again. Anything which can be turned into a moral panic gets tons and tons of likes and shares and re-tweets as people who probably don’t even read more than a couple sentences post “OMG this is hooribleee!!!11” then pass it around like a rumor in 7th-grade study hall.
meanwhile, those 6,100 fb shares your article got were probably all from people who actually read the entire thing. I can’t be sure, though since
I don’t even own a televisionI don’t use facebook or twitter.timely!
http://xkcd.com/1299/
You make a good point. I think it’s interesting how well the scumbags of the web understand the viral phenomenon and how sites like Upworthy and Buzzfeed and Hexagon just hammer the same shit home over and over again — and it works.
To paraphrase Sayre “”Automotive journalism is the most vicious and bitter form of journalism, because the stakes are so low.”
Jack, I was reading my paper copy of the Performance Car of the Year article the other day, why were there no pictures of the Ferrari? (besides the tiny inset)
Good catch!
There’s a reason for that.
In a car magazine, photography reigns supreme. The photographers were scheduled for a full day of nothing but photography AFTER the test. As you’ll recall from reading the article, the Ferrari died in Ohio. From there, it was flatbedded into the custody of Ferrari North America. As a consequence, it didn’t make it back to the airport for the photography day, which took place without it.
All the photographs we have it are from the airport. You can see them here:
http://www.roadandtrack.com/bestof2013/photos-pcoty-finalist-2013-ferrari-f12berlinetta#slide-1
and if you want to see any of them larger, you can change the URL. So if you click on the photo of me taking the airport manager around the track, you get this:
http://www.roadandtrack.com/cm/roadandtrack/images/AK/PCOTY-F12berlinetta01-sm.jpg
If you change it to
http://www.roadandtrack.com/cm/roadandtrack/images/AK/PCOTY-F12berlinetta01-lg.jpg
you’ll get a 1280×720 version of the same photo.
Incidentally, if you told me at the age of ten that thirty-some years later I’d be in Road&Track driving Ferrari’s flagship V-12 grand tourer around an airport, I’m not sure what I would have said in return. I should feel like a lucky man every day.
I kind of feel the same way about what I do. Even though I’ve been into cars for as long as I can remember, when I was a kid it never occurred to me that I’d be working for a company that makes cars. I thought I’d be a mechanic (and I was, got a handful of certs at 16 and wrenched for some years until I earned a BSME) but I’m happy where I ended up. I get a hand in designing cars and trucks people use the world around, and get to drive a variety of things again from the world around, I’ll probably never even sit in a Ferrari, but until his week I wouldn’t have thought I’d spend several days each with a Honda Amaze or a Renault Duster 😉
Shit… This reminds me… I still haven’t bought the PCOTY issue. Dammit.
Great R&T article, Jack.
Ford breaks own embargo, and why not with the cat out of the bag.
Not knowing Doug, all I can go by are his pieces. He did a few for TTAC, and now looks to be writing for Jalopnik (and commenting there frequently). His TTAC articles got a few guffaws from me, and he seems to be striving to be the Dave Barry of auto writing, rather than attempting to do any serious reviews or delve into anything more technical than a glove box. In that vein, it seems he’s found a more suitable site and audience for his style in Jalopnik.
He does make sure to tag each of his pieces with “youngest manager in Porsche USA history” as if that lends credibility or implies automotive knowledge. Having met many of these OEM metal pushers, it’s pretty obvious that car knowledge is unnecessary in becoming a zone manager. You just have to threaten the dealer with loss of preferences if he doesn’t allow you to offload a few turds onto his floor plan. There. Job well done.
So, given his career background and looking back on his articles, it seems he’s jumped into a conversation which he felt entitled to comment upon, given his past association with Porsche. But given that he has never written a single serious piece pertaining to any technical aspects of a vehicle, nor has he provided any background into his performance driving skills, he found the water way over his head after he posted a wildly hyperbolic statement. I’d be surprised if he’s even sat in a CGT, let alone driven one in anger.
I don’t question the danger of driving one of these brutes at track speeds on a city street. Everyone weighing in on this matter with racing credentials and/or a Porsche technical background all agree: Bad idea. But for Doug to say it is “the most dangerous car in the world” is simply click-bait silly.
Better had he stayed true to form and attempted to say something funny. At least then he’d had proven himself to be merely inappropriate, rather than dangerously uninformed and irrelevant amidst adult conversation.
Good point. I’m glad someone finally said it. DeMuro’s pieces are anecdotal at best, or pandering to get a rise out of commenters, at their worst. It’s a shame that sensationalizing a story through misleading or embellished headlines works to get clicks in the web publishing business. The more an author is able to whip their audience into a froth the better their piece will do in terms of visibility.
Doug was not, as I understand it, a manger of people. He was an inventory allocation process “manager.”
Exactly as I suspected. These zone guys show up, and horse trade with the GM.
ZG: I’d love to give you the 25 F-150 Lariat packages, but you gotta help me out. We’re swimming in 120 days of Fusion in S-trim, so how many can you take?
GM: What the hell, I’ve already got 30 now! I’ll take some SEs, but that’s it.
ZG: My boss says to get the trucks, you need to take another 25 Fusion S’s. Not SE’s.
GM: You’re killing me - my clientele wants trucks, it’s snowing outside, get it?! What’m I gonna do with over 50 stripper Fusions?
ZG: Okay, I’ll give you 90 days of floorplan on the Fusions if you take all 25, plus you get your trucks.
GM: Yeah, thanks. Like what choice have I got.
It’s hoLa Jack, hoLa. Single L.
I’m not reading the iCNN thing. But you guys need to put a Linkedin button on TTAC para ayer. Gracias.
“holla” is a corruption of “holler,” meaning “call out to an acquaintance.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=holla
by the way, I noticed that Doug is still listed as TTAC staff on the right edge of the pages.
We didn’t realize he had quit until he started telling everybody in the business he’d quit. WE WERE *SOB* THE LAST TO KNOW.
Reminds me of Bull Shannon on Night Court.
“The deceased are always the last to know.”