What's wrong with the magazines finally articulated...

Check out Fred's new column, "Gray Sludge":

http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm

He's writing mostly about main stream journalism, but I think everything he says is spot on coverage of the difference between Primedia and the Ryan publishing empire.

 

This link goes to the same article, but without the frames.

http://www.fredoneverything.net/GreySludge.shtml

 

Amen!

 

The PROBLEM is that the people that want you to" tell it like it is" won't take the time to support you while the loud mouth cry baby "religeous right" and political correctness police shout the loudest about anything that does not fit their agenda. I just sent the lengthy e-mails back and forth today with Boones about what should actually be said in editorials, but it will NEVER happen becuse the majority who would agree WILL NOT speak up publicly.

A great example involves our own celebrity "40StudeDude" of "Friday Night Read" fame. For those who do not know I also publish his stories in my magazine. I've recieved more compliments on his stories than all the other writers in the mag combined, but even then it's not more than 10 people who have bothered to type or write anything from an audience of over 65 thousand subscribers. I hear plenty by word of mouth, but actually getting people to write compliments is almost unheard of. Well anyway his latest published story about "the good old days" included some drinking and driving references. Immediately the mail starts coming about "irresponsibility" and HOW COULD YOU PUBLISH THIS??? My favorite is the one from a man who wrote that he normally passes down his copies of the magazine to his GROWN ADULT son-in-law, but he would not be passing down this issue because of the drinking reference and is now considering terminating his subscription! What the!!! Would reading this story MAKE this adult go out and down a 12-pack and roar around the streets with total abandon???

You can cry about not hearing the truth, but take it from an insider it's definitely not worth it once the loudmouths start shooting you down and NO ONE has your back.

Your best shot at "TRUTH" iz Ol Skool Rodz- that's whatz really happenin


Edit.- WOW!!! Very sorry to have ruined what could have turned out to be the MILLIONTH "what's wrong with magazines" rant. Hope this doesn't stop anyone from beating the ol dead horse in the future. I like them when they are really vauge like this one! So the reason car magazines suck is because journalists are afraid to insult blacks and jews??? I never thought of it like that! Great point, I'll have to think about that one.

 

You know JimA- I have to side with ya on this issue- I PERSONALLY THINK its not the piano player,who needs shot- its the AUDIENCE!
Does anyone have any ACCURATE data on the overall "population" of our hobby/sport?I'd be willing to bet there are a majority involved NOW ,that are fairly new to the idea of owning let alone BUILDING a HOT ROD-STREET ROD-or CUSTOM .I think they are hobby jumpers =folks who are "into"what we're into this year CAUSE IT'S COOL- and were into somethin else last year and will be into something different yet NEXT YEAR!
I GUESS IF I HAD TO MAKE AN GUESS-ESSMENT OF THEM IT WOULD BE THAT THEY ARE FOR THE MOST PART-........ NOT REALLY "CAR PEOPLE" AT ALL.

 

At the end of the day, you can take all the PC shit & shove it. The bottom line is folks need to apply some common sense & accept personal accountability for their actions. Period.

 

I agree with all of the above. so sue me!!!!!

 

This is the statue that offended John Ashcroft so much that he had it removed.

The following is what I compiled in 2002 for the section of my site that's about the media:

Accuracy in Media is "a nonprofit grassroots citizens watchdog of the news media that critiques botched and bungled news stories and sets the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage."
http://www.aim.org/

Ad Busters is "a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century. We believe culture jamming can be to our era what civil rights was to the '60s, what feminism was to the '70s, what environmental activism was to the '80s. It will alter the way we live and think. It will change the way information flows, the way institutions wield power, the way TV stations are run, and the way the food, fashion, automobile, sports, music and culture industries set their agendas. Above all, it will change the way meaning is produced in our society."
http://www.adbusters.org/

BrassCheck
"Upton Sinclair did a beautiful job of documenting how the US newspaper industry works back in 1919 with his book "The Brass Check". The people who own the US news media are so corrupt and inherently dishonest it's appalling. Average, uninformed people sense it. They know the news is unreliable. They know that most journalists are lacking in integrity, but they don't know the why of it and how it all works. It's easy. Money. You don't print news that offends the owners, the owner's friends, advertisers or potential advertisers, and on the other side of the coin, you slant the news to favor them. You act like their PR agency. It's hard for the average person, who is basically fair-minded and trained to trust authority, to imagine such bald dishonesty, but every impartial person who's ever looked into the facts comes to the same conclusion."
— Ken McCarthy
http://www.brasscheck.com/

Center for Digital Democracy is "preserving and expanding democratic digital media."
http://www.democraticmedia.org/

Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting is "putting the Public back into Public Broadcasting."
http://www.cipbonline.com/

The Committee to Protect Journalists is "a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to the global defense of press freedom."
   "A total of 37 journalists were killed worldwide as a direct result of their work in 2001, a sharp increase from 2000 when 24 were killed, according to CPJ research. At least 25 were murdered, almost all with impunity. The dramatic rise is mainly due to the war in Afghanistan, where eight journalists were killed in the line of duty covering the US-led military campaign, and a ninth journalist died of wounds sustained there two years ago. This was the highest death toll recorded for a single country since 1999, when ten journalists were killed in Sierra Leone. Most of the journalists who were killed last year, however, were not covering combat. They were murdered in reprisal for their reporting on official corruption and crime in countries such as Bangladesh, China, Thailand, and Yugoslavia."
   "Feng Zhaoxia, a reporter for the Xi'an, China-based daily Gejie Daobao, was found with his throat cut in a ditch outside Xi'an. He was an investigative reporter who wrote about criminal gangs and their links to corrupt local politicians, and had received repeated death threats. His family and colleagues believe Feng was killed for his work as a journalist, but police ruled his death a suicide. Petitions to reopen the case have received no response."
http://www.cpj.org/

Drudge Report
   "We have entered an era vibrating with the din of small voices. Every citizen can be a reporter, can take on the powers that be. The difference between the Internet, television and radio, magazines, and newspapers is the two-way communication. The Net gives as much voice to a 13-year-old computer geek like me as to a CEO or speaker of the House. We all become equal."
   "I'm excited about the launch of this Internet medium. And again, freedom of the press belongs to anyone who owns one."
   "There's different levels of journalism; I'll concede that. One of my competitors is Salon Magazine Online, who I understand is the president's favorite website. And there's a reporter there, Jonathan Broder. He was fired for plagiarism from the Chicago Tribune. And I read that in the Weekly Standard. But do I believe it? Because as much as I love the Weekly Standard, they have had to settle a big one with Deepak Chopra, if I recall. I heard that from CNN. But hold on. Didn't CNN didn't have the little problem with Richard Jewell? I think Tom Brokaw told me that, and then I think Tom Brokaw also had to settle with Richard Jewell. I read that in the Wall Street Journal. But didn't the Wall Street Journal just lose a huge libel case down in Texas, a record libel, $200-million worth of jury? I tell you, it's creative enough for an in-depth piece in The New Republic. But I fear people would think it was made up."
— Matt Drudge, speaking at the National Press Club
http://www.drudgereport.com/

Dynamic Truth — "What your liberal media hides from you"
http://www.dynamictruth.com/

The Electronic Frontier Foundation was "created to defend our rights to think, speak, and share our ideas, thoughts, and needs using new technologies, such as the Internet and the World Wide Web. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the first to identify threats to our basic rights online, and to advocate on behalf of free expression in the digital age."
http://www.eff.org/

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting published this article, titled "Newsweek: Hail to the Chief", on November 30, 2001:
   "If there's a propaganda hall of fame, Newsweek has surely earned a place in it with its interview with George W. and Laura Bush (12/3/01)."
   "Written by Newsweek senior editor Howard Fineman and White House correspondent Martha Brant, the profile of the Bushes focuses relentlessly positive attention on the "First Couple's" emotional responses to the September 11 attacks. New details about atrocities by US-backed forces in Afghanistan are emerging daily, but the central question in the Newsweek exclusive was: "From where does George W. Bush — or Laura, for that matter — draw the strength for this grand mission, the ambitious aim of which is nothing less than to 'rid the world of evildoers'?"
   "Faith, prayer, and love of family are the article's main themes, with almost no space devoted to political questions. "The First Team has been exemplary in the eyes of the American people," declared Newsweek. Bush "has been a model of unblinking, eyes-on-the-prize decisiveness. His basic military strategy... has proved astute. He has been eloquent in public, commanding in private. He had survived the first blows, made the right calls and exceeded expectations — again."
   "Bush isn't just a man of the mind, though. "Another source of strength," noted the magazine, "is physical conditioning." According to Newsweek, Bush "is in the best shape of his life, a fighting machine who has dropped 15 pounds and cut his time in the mile to seven minutes... He feels destined to win — and to serve."
   "The magazine was also thorough in addressing — and dismissing — facts about Bush that might be perceived as flaws. The president doesn't read many books, Newsweek explained, because "he's busy making history, but doesn't look back at his own, or the world's... Bush would rather look forward than backward. It's the way he's built."
   "The toughest questions were philosophical. "Do you think that Saddam Hussein is evil and that we should expand this to Iraq?," asked Newsweek. Noting that Bush answered without using the word evil, the magazine followed up with, "Why wouldn't you say he's evil then?", to which Bush replied simply: "He ain't good." Showing a diligence unmatched elsewhere in the interview, the reporters asked once again why he stopped short of using the word. A beleaguered Bush gave in, saying, "maybe because you're trying to force me to say it, and I'm stubborn... He is evil. Saddam's evil."
   "Newsweek says that the White House spin machine had nothing to do with their portrayal of Bush. In this interview, wrote Newsweek, "there were few mangled sentences. The handlers at the table were listening, not handling." Maybe that's because Newsweek was doing their job for them."
   "In times of war and crisis, it is doubly important that media aggressively seek truth and report it to the public. For a major newsweekly to turn an exclusive interview with the president into a puff piece would be disappointing under any circumstances, but it is particularly so at a time when the US government is taking extreme measures to cloak controversial military and law enforcement actions in secrecy, both at home and abroad."
http://www.fair.org/

Institute for Public Accuracy
http://www.accuracy.org/

Make Them Accountable
"The obscure but decisive factor of the 2000 presidential election was the issue of concentration of power in broadcasting. The huge conglomerates that own the networks and the big city newspapers desperately wanted to eliminate the federal regulation prohibiting one corporation from owning both the broadcast stations and the newspapers in a city. Al Gore and the Democratic Party supported the existing regulation, which was enacted to prevent a corporation from gaining a monopoly on a city's media. George W. Bush and the Republican party supported repealing the regulation, which would mean hundreds of billions of dollars in profits to the big media companies."
— David Podvin
http://www.makethemaccountable.com/

Jim Marrs is the author of "You Are Being Lied To — The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion."
http://www.jimmarrs.com/

Me and Ted is "the unauthorized story of the founding of CNN", by Reese Schonfeld.
http://www.meandted.com/

Media Alliance
http://www.media-alliance.org/

Media Channel is "a media issues supersite, featuring criticism, breaking news, and investigative reporting from hundreds of organizations worldwide. As the media watch the world, we watch the media."
   "More than ever before, we are living in a media age and a media world. Nine transnational conglomerates dominate the global media; multibillion-dollar deals are concentrating this power even further. Yet we are also experiencing a technological revolution that empowers independent media, worldwide communication and innovative media projects for everything from community development to political action."
http://wwwmediachannel.org/

Media Education Foundation
http://www.mediaed.org/

Media Research Center is "bringing political balance and responsibility to the media."
http://www.mediaresearch.org/

Media Transparency exposes "the money behind the media."
http://www.mediatransparency.org/

The Nation
   "For all their economic clout and cultural sway, the ten great multinationals profiled in our latest chart — AOL Time Warner, Disney, General Electric, News Corporation, Viacom, Vivendi, Sony, Bertelsmann, AT&T and Liberty Media — rule the cosmos only at the moment. The media cartel that keeps us fully entertained and permanently half informed is always growing here and shriveling there, with certain of its members bulking up while others slowly fall apart or get digested whole. But while the players tend to come and go — always with a few exceptions — the overall Leviathan itself keeps getting bigger, louder, brighter, forever taking up more time and space, in every street, in countless homes, in every other head."
   "In short, the news divisions of the media cartel appear to work against the public interest — and for their parent companies, their advertisers and the Bush Administration. The situation is completely un-American. It is the purpose of the press to help us run the state, and not the other way around. As citizens of a democracy, we have the right and obligation to be well aware of what is happening, both in "the homeland" and the wider world. Without such knowledge we cannot be both secure and free. We therefore must take steps to liberate the media from oligopoly, so as to make the government our own."
— Mark Crispin Miller, from "What's Wrong With This Picture?"
http://www.thenation.com/

Gergory Palast
   "The New York Times did a story about how gold mining companies out of Nevada have tremendous influence over the Bush administration. Nowhere in the story did they mention that George Bush Sr. was on the board of the biggest gold mining company in Nevada. They didn't mention the name of the company. Here they are doing a story on gold mining in Nevada and they don't mention the name of overwhelmingly the biggest company in Nevada, which by the way is called Barrick. And it had on its advisory George Bush Sr. It left out the name of the company and the fact it had on its board a former president."
   "How did that happen? I can tell you because that company sued my paper when I ran a story, and I have the same lawyer as The New York Times. You can bet that the New York Times figured out it was going to cost them money or create controversy. God forbid you create controversy; that would be considered disastrous in a news room. When you get a letter from a lawyer who says we disagree, the story gets blocked. The Globe and Mail, which is the number one paper in Canada, was going to run the story. I was told that the top people in the Globe and Mail killed the story. So you have absolute direct corporate influence killing stories."
— Greg Palast, in an interview with Guerrilla News Network
http://www.gregpalast.com/

People for Better TV
http://www.bettertv.org/

PR Watch provides "public interest reporting on the PR / Public Affairs industry."
http://www.prwatch.org/

The Professional Paranoid is the work of H. Michael Sweeney, who has written "the Professional Paranoid's page on disinformation" and disinformationalists, featuring the 25 rules of disinformation, and eight traits of a disinformationalist.
http://www.proparanoid.com/

Project Censored
http://www.projectcensored.org/

Public Information Research
http://www.namebase.org/

The George Seldes Archive
"Seldes published a newsletter in the 1940s called "In fact". It had over 150,000 paid subscribers which even today would be huge subscriber base for a newsletter. He was the first, back in 1941, to publish about the dangers of additives in cigarettes and the corruption of Congress and the scientific community by the tobacco industry. 1941. Over 60 years ago. He laid it all out. He also did very detailed research on the role Standard Oil, General Motors, Ford, Chase Manhattan, and DuPont played in building the Nazi war machine before and, in some cases, even during the war. The Nazis had "a friend at Chase", to take a line from one of their old ad campaigns. Anyway, J. Edgar Hoover, being the venal, mob-connected scumbag that he was, took a strong dislike to the independence of Seldes' mind and, in conjunction with the US Post Office and the military, drove Seldes out of business. If you were in the armed forces and were a subscriber, you got called to the local military intelligence office for a warning. Post Offices passed along the name of subscribers to the FBI, and FBI agents would actually show up at subscribers' doors and warn them about the "subversive" nature of Seldes' writings."
— Ken McCarthy
http://www.brasscheck.com/seldes/

The Student Press Law Center is "the nation's only legal assistance agency devoted exclusively to educating high school and college journalists about the rights and responsibilities embodied in the First Amendment and supporting the student news media in their struggle to cover important issues free from censorship."
http://www.splc.org/

Subverting the Media is an essay by David Guyatt.
http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/


"Until the 1980s, one company could legally own no more than seven AM and seven FM stations. In 2001, one company, Clear Channel, owns more than 1,200. Profit at many stations is promoted by stripping staff to the bone; some of these places have barely any employees and no local programming. They are computerized corporate jukeboxes, reverse ATM machines. Their broadcast day is filled with the canned and the bland, a puree prepared at a place far away. Now we have hundreds of radio stations creating a profit with virtually no on-air personnel and no newsroom, no Associated Press wire, no birth announcements, no obits. And not least, no coverage of the police, the PTA or the Lions Club and no high school football scores. Nothing but digital music, commercials, and profit."
— Phil Donahue, in an editorial in The Nation dated January 7, 2002.


Dave
http://www.roadsters.com/

 

I still have NO IDEA how any of this applies to hot rod magazines and why they suck
Hop Up RULLES! & look for my story in the next Rodder's Journal. Save the politics for some place else and stick to the important stuff like building hot rods "outside the box"

 

Ashcroft doesnt like boobies? No wonder he's such a jackass... fuckin fag.

 

ASSkroft also has a morbid fear of calico cats,the guy's a nutjob if you ask me...

 

yeah.

Media is generally SHIT. I also heard that smoking is BAD for you.

Go figure.

-r

 

i've got my bad habits down to <ul type="square"> [*]cigarettes [*]coffee [*]spending too much money on my car [/list] compared to what i used to do i'm a fucking saint nowadays...

 

JimA, just said it,, what did that article have to do with Car Mag? Are you saying that they only print the popular cars? (they are popular because the majority like them) that they can't say what they think about DeathRods or RatRods or overly done Billet Rides because it will piss off its readers (Editors may be limited to what they can say but they should not be out of fear of what the public will say.) I do agree with many points of the article and how it relates/ skews the newspaper and tv media...

 

When I was 12, I bought car magazines to look at the pictures of cars....and I wanted Playboy for pictures of naked girls....didn't really give a shit about what was written in either magazine, although I did read some of what was in the car mags....fast forward to age 52....I get better picture coverage of cars on the internet...and If I was "into" porn, the internet would be the place to get it.

Great literature isn't included in either of these internet areas(cars and porn) , and that is to be expected..

For what it's worth, the magazine articles I read are for entertainment, and if I'm entertained, that's OK by me....if I'm not, and the pictures suck, then I put the magazine back on the rack....finish my Starbucks coffee, and leave Barnes and Noble empty handed.

 

I think "letters to the Editor" should remain just that.
They should be read, by the Editor only, so he/she may gain whatever knowledge from them and since they are addressed to him/her, and not "to the general public readership," should never leave that desk.
Printing them in the magazine only breeds reader vigilantism and mass hysteria about what they should be reading and makes them think magazines should be interactive. like the net.
It can’t be, so quit trying to make it so!

I'm not saying the letters should be ignored, and if there are a lot with the same "suggestions" then they may need to be taken to heart and changes made, but printing them in a magazine, no.
I've always thought printing letters reeked of "look how great we are" self-stroking, and a waste of yet another editorial page that could better be used to print EXCELLENT photos of cars with simple captions explaining all the modifications done to, and the specifications of, the car.

I too, buy magazines for the pictures, but I want the "models stat's" and little else.
I definitely don’t need the “Look what a great hobby we are the authority of” self-stroking kinds of writing that was part of why I quit reading a couple of magazines.

And don't print words across the pictures because it fucks up the picture and black mini-font on a tire or asphalt pavement is impossible to read!

I do like some "intellectual" editorial but haven't read much original new thought since Bill Burnham and Ed Roth passed.
Freiburger's Editorials are usually entertaining to me, for a for instance.

I also think a publishing company putting out a dozen different magazines on similar subjects should assume the responsibility of having a group calendar displaying what cars are being featured in other company magazines so they don’t end up with the same friggin’ car or truck featured on the cover of three in house magazines the same season.
Repeating coverage does NOT sell more magazines!

I don’t need “If you own a complete machine shop with seven figure machines and balancing equipment you can make this part in an afternoon” how-to articles.
I only need how-to articles about procedures I can accomplish in my garage at home.
If I have to farm out the job I don’t care how it’s done, I expect the professional I sell the job to to know that or he/she shouldn’t be in the business.

I miss the occasional short story in magazines, like the one in HOTROD Magazine #1
and one I think was in R &amp; C in the 60's (or my nightmares then, and it was in a magazine in my dream?) about a frustrated, guy who brought his hotrod out of hiding in spite of a decades old government ban on driving any kind of personal vehicle, and headed out across the countryside Mad Max style, only to be spotted by the state police search and exterminate helicopter and...ZAP!

 

So what's the plan big thinkers? Convert all magazines to communism so that you don't get FORCE FED what "the man" wants to to believe is going on in hot rodding. Let everyone have a voice and then there's NO WAY for the corporate monster to take over! Or maybe if everyone sends me a dollar I can put a magazine with no ads leading what the content is- YEAH- then it will be pure... pure BS. Sorry, but there are not covert plans to control your mind through rodding magazines, but locking or removing a post because you don't like someone OR their OPINION, personality or sense of humor seems pretty scary to me.

 

Which post got locked this time?

 

The world has changed,now the tail wags the Dog.
Magazine publishers have changed their focus,or had it changed for them,
the reader is no longer their number 1 priority.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


The longer someone is exposed to the HAMB,
the fewer mainstream automotive magazines they will be buying.

 

6 HAMBers in Ego-Rama, I don't think there are any Boyds or Brizios or Fooses. Maybe someone is listening. Now if we could just bring back Krass &amp; Bernie and stories about what it's like to be there as a participant at events instead of shop tours of manufacturers, I'll start buying again. I buy mags for HotRods not for pics of stacks of metal that will be turned into identical wheels by monster machines and shots of some guy sitting at a desk that answers the phones. And I don't want to read about 34 Deuce 5-window Roadsters from some guy who doesn't remember the Vega or the Granada, let alone Fleetlines, coupes and roadsters. But then, the magazines would be out of business. Oh well!

 

[ QUOTE ]
...They weren't controlling my mind - just starting to bore me. I have discovered a whole new world in OLD books and magazines though. Simple truth.

[/ QUOTE ]

And it is true too.
Just the other night I re-read the April '55 R &amp; C. It's better than "RODZ" is ever gonna be.

 

JimA,
Generally speaking I am on your side here. There HAS to be some kind of political consciousness if you want to have a popular magazine - appeal to the masses y'know. And someone, somewhere HAS to keep the machine turning by generating revenue. That takes sponsors. So basic THEY are the folks you aim to please FIRST. Hopefully what John Q likes is in the same vein as what THEY like, right? The drawback, you can't go dropping the "F" bomb every other word and using pussy to sell subscriptions and keep that mainstream audience and the big money that follows it.

That can lead to some folks getting anxious for something else. I mean - after getting a certain mag. sub. for a couple years in a row it can get stale. I look back at my old mags sometimes and think, damn they're all the same!!

I think that is how a mag. like CKD, or OSR gets readers. It's a nice change of pace - especially for those of us who aren't getting the kind of attention in the mainstream mags.

Add to all of this that every tech article is just a sales pitch and posts like this are the result. Hell I haven't seen a really decent tech arty in some time - from any magazine mainstream or not!

I don't think anyone is or should be bitter here, there is justification on both sides.

One thing is for sure, I do like the HAMB better than ANY magazine, Period!

 

I write magazines. I'm the editor of one and the tech editor of another. I work with the writers of many other mags too. On this side of the fence, things are different, but I can tell you this with no hesitation...

..the guys I work with are neither ignorant nor uneducated. They are just as passionate about their subject matter as anyone here. They do their very best to deliver the finest-possible car features, tech stories, event coverage, and photography as humanly possible.

While we are often accused of "oversupporting" the aftermarket, we feel it's part of our job to investigate and test new products being introduced to the market. It's always been this way, and I feel our duty is to show readers what they want to see, tell them how it works, and show test results whenever possible.

Criticism is part of the deal. We take it.

But, consider this...In my case, with the circulation of my magazine(s), there are over a quarter of a million people looking over my shoulder at everything I do for a living every month.

Regardless of what you do for a living, think about 250,000 people who have interest, experience, and knowledge about what you do, and let them look over your shoulder at all you've done all month.

Do you honestly think no one will have any critique? Do you not think there will be many so-called experts, self-appointed geniuses, and long-in-the-tooth old guys who did it all 35 years ago to tell you how fucked up you are?

They are out there, and they are vocal.

I do my very best every single month, as my co-workers do. We live this life 24/7. We'd love to be able to satisfy every single reader with every single issue. If we did, our circulation would increase and the bean counters would be happy.

So, we try.

I've been a professional aircraft technician/assembler, a professional racing engine builder, a Service Manual/OEM Training Course desginer/Writer, and an automotive photojournalist. Without doubt, the MOST dedicated, passionate, pure-hearted co-workers I've EVER had have been here with the magazine writers.

(Honestly, I wish some of the aircraft builders I used to work with took their jobs as seriously as these guys do. The liability building new commercial airliners is much greater than publishing car mags, but there is no comparison)

The mag writers here are far from ignorant. On the contrary, I'm proud to be associated with them.

Corporate politics are an entirely different matter, of course, but the guys whose names are spelled out in the bylines are overwhelmingly legit hot rodders.

Scotch~!

 

[ QUOTE ]
Big thinker here...and I've only been interested in hot rods 6 or 7 years tops. Simple truth.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you.

 

Good point, but the auto magazine work A LOT differently. What happens is you have a bunch of car nuts writing the stories, the real ones will undoubtedly have projects. They will choose products for their cars to do an install on for the mag. Since it makes sense that you would only pick parts you would want on your car the story will usually be favorable (HEY, it's FREE parts), also you want to keep the gravy train rolling so you don't want to become "that guy" who writes bad things about parts.

And don't think auto mag guys are the only ones getting FREEBIES. Do you think any of those "celebrities" paid a dime for that Von Dutch garb? Hell no. The list goes on &amp; on. Using a part in a magazine story is in a way an endorsement. When I built my magazine project I only used parts I would have bought. I was happy and the suppliers were happy when it ended up being a popular project- sold a lot of parts- and it wasn't a "sell ot" because it was exactly what I wanted.

 

You don't know how genuinely happy it makes me to have made someone laugh. As much as I have tried to keep it happy and fun in my posts it always returns to this heavy stuff. If I could I would make fun of myself on here everyday- but you would get bored of that really quick. I don't have a problem with "new guys"- I don't even need to get into everything I do for "new guys"- I've just had a problem with the "hey, lets beat up the magazines" posts that as soon as I say anything defensive it turns into a war that leaves me kicked off, locked post or pissing someone off. I try to offer an insight- not a fight.