Television News Increasingly Relying on Car and Driver Forum Members for Political Analysis
Television news producers, from CNN and CNBC to NBC and CBS, are increasingly turning to Car and Driver’s forums as a source for analysis and commentary on international economics and politics.
The Car and Driver forums have been something of a guarded secret by university researchers and academics for years. “If I wanted to do research about the strength of the Yen versus the Dollar, I would post on the C&D forums asking whether a Toyota Camry was better than a Chevy Malibu,” said Professor Michael Gibbons of the University of Chicago. “My most recent paper received huge critical applause. But most people don’t know that The Japs Make Shit Cars, LOL, was actually cribbed from the Car and Driver forums.”
The trend has picked up speed in the past year, as news programs have been forced to cut their budgets and can no longer afford to consistently bring in established “big names” as commentators and researchers. “We’re limited fiscally, and these Car and Driver forums offer a tremendous free resource for us.” said Kevin Schvitz of CNBC’s popular program “Money MONEY MONEY GIVE ME FRICKIN’ MONEY.”
Does this signal a full-scale embrace of car websites as a news source? Producers are still cautious. Heinrich Klaus Voderberg of FoxNews said “We looked at getting some analysis from the commenters on TheTruthAboutCars.com, but we felt that we’re comfortable with how conservative FoxNews appears already.”
Claire Montague from CNN may have agreed. “In this Facebook-Twitter-MySpace generation, social media plays an important role of telling us the pulse of society. Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, social networking sites, and blogs and the blogosphere. Let’s check in with our Yelp.com correspondent.”