AAH #811 - Is Real Automotive Journalism Dead?

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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SPEAKER_2 (0:24)

Hey everyone, thanks for joining us this afternoon.

I'm going to do something a little bit different for the first half of the show. And so I'll do a little bit of setup. For those of you who saw the show last week, we had David Coletti, who's the president of consumer and OE tires at Bridgestone Americas. Now, so here's a guy who is an executive in the auto industry, and he's also a racer. He's an automoism enthusiast. So before the show, we were all sitting around talking, and we started talking about consuming media in terms of, you know, like, what does he do in terms of getting information? And like many of you, many of us, he grew up reading the car magazines, and he ran through the car and driver, road and track, motor trend, automobile, and so on.

And then, of course, as an executive, he mentioned that, you know, at one point in his career, I mean, currently, he had a stack of automotive news is on his desk, and he made the point that he doesn't read magazines anymore. He doesn't have the stack of automotive news on his desk, and that the media that he consumes is all digital media. And so, you know, whether it's seeing one of these publications online or watching YouTube and getting information that way. Some of you are watching YouTube right now to see this, which is a good thing and makes us very happy. So, given all of that, I thought, okay, how has media changed within the last 20-some years, let's say, okay? So, we've got a couple of guys here who are gonna help explain this. We've got Greg Migliore and Peter DeLorenzo. Now, many of you know Peter, Peter, the auto extremist who started his site 27 years ago. Okay. So, here's a guy who had a career in advertising, switched over, has been online for 27 years running about the auto industry. Now, Greg, he started out as a reporter, got out of school, then he went to work for Auto Week, then he went to work for Automobile Magazine. He was a longtime editor at Auto Blog. He then went to Vertical Scope and now Greg is a freelancer. Okay.

So, I want to get a sense of how these guys see things changing over the years. Okay. So, Greg, let me start with you. I mean, so, you worked for some legendary print publications, and then you went to Auto Blog online.

So, talk to me about how you see the print space then and now, and the digital space then and now.

Greg Migliore (3:24)

Well, I think it's interesting because I feel like starting out, I was like on the very, like the edge of right when people were still doing print was really the most important thing. Like, in auto week, we still had proofs. Even in college, we still had like paste up things where if you had to make a change on an article, you busted out the razor blade, sliced out that paragraph and away you went. So, I kind of saw that like at the very end of when print was king, and, you know, moving into like sort of the digital age, you know, it evolved. You know, right now, I think brand recognition is way more important. Building a loyal, repeatable audience, I think is the most important thing.

Whereas for a while, like when I transitioned from auto week to auto blog with automobile in between, traffic was the king, you know, and that's where you really like it auto blog, you're trying to get more and more traffic.

And I think that's what websites did for a while, is just the sheer audience is what mattered. And now I think we've kind of maybe pivoted back a little bit from that, you're trying to find the right audience. And that's where you find things like podcasts, like YouTube, newsletters, to build that sort of engagement and keep your clientele coming back and back. Whereas I think at the start of it, it really was just like very top down, like here's our magazine, we're telling you what to think. And that's how it was with all publications frankly, so.

SPEAKER_2 (4:55)

Okay, but do you see a change in the reporting? Do you see a change in the writing? Do you see a change in the coverage? I mean, how has this changed?