GM Paid For This Post

CAR companies need bloggers the same way elephants need dung beetles. It’s not that those towering pachyderms can’t live without us creepy crawlies taking their… poop, per se, but Mother Nature has made room for all of us in the consumer’s ecosystem.

So, the elephants have come to accept us. And to roughly paraphrase the guy from Big Blue (IBM), they really can dance an elephantine jig.

General Motors invited Automobiles de Luxe to be their guest at this year’s New York Auto Show. GM rep. Adam Denison first saw my writings over @ 4DriversOnly and sent me a complimentary e-mail that included the invite.

The company’s only request for what amounted to an it’s-on-us vacation was that I remind you in all content pertaining to GM products that the General played host.

It doesn’t escape me or my crew that in signing on to six interviews, four lunch/dinner events, and an invitation to one helluva party that the General captured ADL’s focus far longer than he otherwise would have in so diverse a forum.

Our here-to-there schedule of GM events (which we asked for and were by no means required to meet) squeezed out time for Bentley, Maserati, and Jaguar. As it was, yours was out of breath running back from Benz’s press conference to meet the Cadillac man.

Does such a heavy focus make this venerable little platform for automotive appreciation and critique an all-out sell out? Some have already called to say as much. Each of you can decide for yourselves.

The Quandary

As it is, the wider world of communications is still in a quandary on what to make of bloggers and our biases – real and perceived.

The Fourth Estate (print) is particularly keen on pointing that we produce very little original material (check), merely repost theirs (check), and often serve as nothing better than parrots to corporate press machines (again, check).

But all that said, many of the traditional press have been on “the dole” for some time. And it is easy to see why.

From our rooms at the Peninsula, we knew just what time it was thanks to the clocks on Fifth Avenue’s Presbyterian Church which we turned to from the comfortable, eye-level vantage afforded us from our beaux-arts tower.

At the Buick Cipriani luncheon held in the masonic halls of a former bank, there were some in the audience who with the air of the most practiced diffidence projected that they had seen it all before and had become well accustomed to the perks.

Others, namely some from the Internet community were by contrast new to such corporate generosity – that includes yours truly.

Over the ensuing two days, there would be various levels of pandering. Some of GM’s guests maintained friendly dialog without compromising their neutral role while others were rather eager to ensure GM’s corporate reps knew that they were – doing their part online.

Again, yours truly probably fell somewhere in the middle – which in some golden tome of tried and true journalism likely amounted to treason. I’m sure that somewhere Walter Lippmann cast a furrowed brow on me for failing to maintain objective distance when informing the island (that’s you).

Were he an empathetic man, Mr. Lippmann would see how difficult it was to be purely objective.

Aside from harboring the clearly selfish, not-so-hidden motive of wanting to be re-invited, there was the far more unsettling aspect of realizing that those who ran the corporate communications departments of the General’s various battalions -er – “brands” were – with few exceptions – good and decent people.

Such conditions speak volumes to the maxim that understanding has the hazardous potential of leading to forgiveness.

True, GM’s politesse was not altruistic. But it was nonetheless impressive that us bloggers were accorded respect and in most cases our communication enjoyed a real degree of candor that’s seldom found in exchanges with PR people.

One such well spoken gentleman was Jan-Willem Vester, manager of corporate communications at Saab USA.

Over dinner at The Park restaurant (their fillet was delicious, by the way) he brought faith to a profession that anyone in journalism or pseudo-journalism is geared toward regarding with wary contempt.

How?

Mr. Vester proved “brand” (detest that word) loyal in the organic sense by being an owner/enthusiast through discovery and not solely by corporate attrition.

And what was even greater was that you could carp – as I did – about Cadillac BLS this, or 9-7X that, or why Saab chose to go with “Turbo X” and not replay “Viggen,” and what made producing the Aero X so unrealistic anyway (?) and you’d get the kind of honest, no-bull answers that one just doesn’t expect.

Let’s be clear that Mr. Vester’s engaging responses never for one moment compromised the company line, but they did impress by imparting that the people running Saab were human; and striving to learn and grow from their current, admittedly troubled position.

A quick Google search told me that others have been in receipt of Mr. Vester’s fresh candor.

To hammer this point home, let me tell you that so moved was I by this one rep’s performance that I commended Mr. Vester to one of his superiors at Saab.

Unfortunately, such commendations didn’t appear to register with the other gentleman in question who seemed to be somehow perplexed why he was in an interview with some kid in a suit.

That Zegna suit was tailored just for this kid, friend.

Anyhow, I’m sure to some whose self-appointed and truly bitter duty it is to seek some warped truth in all aspects automotive, this post must amount to a bill of sale. Bought and paid-for press for the General.

Well, perhaps on some level. But then again, let’s take a step back from such accusations and get a little real.

The End

This century will see the end of the autonomous automobile.

As someone who genuinely loves the romance that is the automotive world, to acknowledge this is akin to remembering that all joys in life are ephemeral.

But watching the writing on the wall being written as it now is, it’s important to recognize that the dawn of colorless, robotic and alternative transport spurned by the pressures of urbanization and hyperbole driven, so-called “green” politics is our next destination.

We in the blogging community do have some innate obligation to be honest about that which we learn and then communicate to our audiences. But that obligation should in no way be mired in angry cynicism – which can be an all too tempting forum for a writer to displace personal rage.

To lesser degree, yours truly discovered this with respect to Mercedes-Benz. Physical exercise and other cathartic practices are much better antidotes to stress. Others might consider this where it pertains to their attacks on GM.

So when we learn of some blogger throwing deliberately personal fire bombs at an overpaid, but nevertheless Teflon coated GM exec, the firestorm seems less the virtuous act of the vigilant-corporate-watchdog and more some angry guy vomiting acid for attention.

We write about cars, ladies and gentlemen. And in the grand scheme of things, the subject matter ranks on the lighter scale of news. So, let’s lighten up, try not to be too serious, and grant ourselves permission to enjoy the drive while we still can.

And that means saving our ammo for when it counts.

Besides, how could we hope to deliver objectivity to our audiences if the very core of our coverage were inherently negative?

On behalf of my crew and myself, I extend our thanks to the folks at General Motors for graciously accepting us in amongst their fold for a few days.

As car enthusiasts and journalists, we have learned a great deal from our brief time in New York. And for that experience, we are and shall remain grateful.