Car Place, Theme Park Insider & Consumer World sometime outshine big media

This column appeared Jan. 22, 2002, in the Online Journalism Review. Here’s the version on the OJR site. Updated May 31, 2002.

By J.D. Lasica

When it comes to consumer news and information, bigger is better, right? Not necessarily — and not when business interests and advertising dollars trump the rights of readers to obtain honest, hard-hitting advice that would send a media bean-counter into a stroke.

As most newspaper and broadcast journalists can attest, there are some news subjects that are considered generally off-limits to the news side, especially if they involve major advertisers or business associates of the publisher. In two decades working at daily newspapers, I’ve had only two stories spiked: One reported on a minor lawsuit against family members of my newspaper’s publisher; the second was a column criticizing the practices of used-car salesmen. My friends in the business, travel, real estate and automotive sections have also waded into their fair share of ethical quagmires. One need only head over to any journalism trade magazine for testimony to the increasingly grim tally in the battle between journalistic values and stockholders’ quarterly returns.

Certainly, patches of brave reporting and of editors standing up to advertiser interests take place all the time, with little fanfare and too few kudos. Now comes the Net to help balance the equation further.

We scoped out three sites practicing varying forms of consumer journalism and community news: The Car Place, Theme Park Insider and Consumer World. All are run by current or former print journalists who put the public interest above the bottom line. All operate on a modest budget (what else?) out of their creators’ homes. And all are possible only because of the Web.

The Car Place

Ever read a review of a new car and felt there was something missing — namely, critical commentary and skeptical journalism that looks out for your interests? Bob Bowden hears you. Oh, indeed he does.

Bowden, 60, is a veteran of the newspaper automotive wars. He worked in newsrooms for 32 years, including 21 years at the St. Petersburg Times and nine years at the Tampa Tribune. Beginning in the late 1980s he began reviewing new cars, and he’s now driven and sized up well over 1,000. But there have been bumps along the way.

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