Los Angeles Times: GM Stops Buying Ads in The Los Angeles Times

[DeepModem Mom]

GM Stops Buying Ads in The Times
By David Colker, Times Staff Writer


General Motors Corp. on Thursday pulled its advertising from the Los Angeles Times over disagreements with car reviews and other articles that have appeared in the newspaper.

The world's largest automaker said the move was "based on strongly voiced objections from our dealers in California about factual errors and misrepresentations in The Times editorial coverage."

A GM spokesman would not specify the errors or say which articles caused the rift....

***

A GM executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday's review of the Pontiac G6 by Times Pulitzer Prize-winning automobile critic Dan Neil was particularly offensive.

Neil wrote that "GM is a morass of a business case" and called for the ouster of GM's chairman and chief executive, Rick Wagoner. Among other things, Neil took the company to task for not more aggressively developing fuel-efficient cars and focusing instead on SUVs....


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-times8apr08,0,2052269.story?coll=la-home-business

[hippiepunk]

1. good for the times!

Good to see a news outlet not complete slaves to their advertisers!

[jayfish]

2. Pssssttt.

Hey, GM, stop worrying about reviews and make better cars.

Jay

[MeinaShaw]

7. GM does not stand for Good Merchandise

[Javaman]

3. Sounds like a giant case of sour grapes or...

the inability to control the media with their own spin.

Boo fucking hoo for GM. They build giant ass gas guzzlers, gas sky rockets and now they are pissed off at their own stupidity.

Perfect of example of moron's* mentality and how it's spread like a cancer to the corporate world, always blame the person or source who points out the stupidity rather than take responsibility for their actions.

[UpInArms]

4. GM's credit rating is "junk"

and perhaps they were trying to find a way out of paying for advertising - attempting to smear the LATs so that they wouldn't have to 'fess up to not having the $$$ to pay for ads?

I hear they're giving 1,000 cars away, just trying to get the sheep into their showrooms.

Hope that works out for them :sarcasm:

[tedzbear]

5. GM is only hurting themselves...

...without advertising in LA Times they will lose even more market share in Southern California.
Obviously Rick Wagoner is having a hissy fit. Unfortunately for him, he is about to be shown the door.

[MeinaShaw]

6. GM will instead be running ads on Dateline

I hear they will be featuring their Chevy pickup line.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

8. LOL

good one

[UCLA Dem]

9. Keep it up LAT!!

[gratuitous]

10. What, is the LA Times calling GM's 20 mpg crapmobiles . . .

20 mpg crapmobiles?

[priller]

11. Ooh! Read the review, too.

Man, that's a really bad car, when he starts off the review calling for the chairman's ouster! Yikes!

No, actually, he said the car was okay, but that's all, merely okay. It wasn't competitive. "I can't believe I'm saying this in 2005, but the car has a pushrod V6 mated to a 4-speed automatic..." Hard to believe, isn't it.

[applegrove]

12. So newspapers have to be more like magazines? Stop giving out

good information! You bad, bad, newspaper you. What do you think people look at the Wednesday Car Section for? Information? HA! :sarcasm:

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Hmmm I wnder if they realize taht they will not get the sheep

into teh showrooms with their crappy low performance, gas guzler line...

Oh well who cares?

[Nostradamus]

14. GM has 300 billion of debt

not 300 million

300 billion

300,000,000,000 dollars

1000 dollars for each US citizen

[DeepModem Mom]

16. It's mind-boggling, Nostradamus -- welcome to DU!

[Nostradamus]

39. i have been on the forum for nearly a year now

[Synnical]

36. Analyst expects GM to be cut to 'junk' in 3 to 6 months

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B641C36BA-1B70-42F5-A3F9-3C7DD6FFF8AB%7D&siteid=mktw

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Bonds issued by General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. were pummeled Friday after Deutsche Bank initiated coverage on each company's fixed-income securities, rating GM a sell and Ford a hold.

"Based on our outlook for worse than widely expected U.S. market share, severe profit deterioration from adverse mix, and limited near-term progress on fixed costs, we believe that the deterioration that we are likely to see in GM profitability and its balance sheet will be alarming to both equity and bond investors," analyst Rod Lache told clients.

Ford is not far behind GM as regards its battle to maintain market share, its strong reliance on traditional SUVs and large pickup trucks "and the resulting headwinds that the company faces from a mix perspective," said Lache.

[durablend]

15. The plutocrats are definitely on an arrogant mandate...

"Speak the company line or we're taking our ball and going home"

There's the door GM...compete or DIE. There's not much of anything coming from them that appeals to me.

[jayfish]

17. Kick To Combine -NT-

Jay

[Moderator]

18. kick to combine

[NNN0LHI]

19. GM Pulls Ads From Los Angeles Times Over Editorial Coverage

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB06ZLKA7E.html

LOS ANGELES (AP) - General Motors Corp. says it will stop advertising in the Los Angeles Times, at least temporarily, because of dealer concerns over "factual errors and misrepresentations" in the newspaper's articles and editorials.

The newspaper, which is owned by Tribune Co., will review coverage that prompted the complaints from the world's largest automaker, said Times spokesman David Garcia. snip

On Wednesday, the paper published a column by auto critic Dan Neil that called GM, which has struggled recently with sluggish sales, "a morass of a business case" and called for the "impeachment" of two executives. Among other criticisms, Neil said GM "utterly missed the boat on hybrid gas-electric technology" while speeding up production of SUVs.

Neil won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for criticism, cited by the judges for "one-of-a-kind" reviews of automobiles blending technical expertise with "offbeat humor and astute cultural observations."

more

[fob]

20. There's a Pulitzer Prize for CRITICISM? In that case I gotta write

some things down regarding chimpco*.

[unblock]

22. i'm sure you would face some stiff competition

gotta be a LOT of entries in THAT particular category!

[swimmernsecretsea]

21. Another example of a company trying to manipulate editorial content

I recall hearing about the San Jose Mercury News getting into serious financial trouble after printing an unflattering article on auto dealers who promptly pulled out of the paper.

If the articles mentioned above are indeed guilty of factual misrepresentation, that is another story, but it seems more likely that GM was just sore about the story.

[madrchsod]

23. i guess the truth hurts

they had to buy out h ross perot because he was to critical of the way the insiders ran the company. to note-how could the most popular car in america-the olds cutlass- in a few short years go out of business?

[Coventina]

24. They can't handle the truth. n/t

[NNN0LHI]

25. You just don't mess with big bidness. Especially the big three n/t

[wallwriter]

26. If GM had the products or the vision

to counter these assertions, they wouldn't need to pull their advertising. They could advertise more, and let the customers beat a path to their door. They are simply shooting themselves in the foot.

[AlCzervik]

27. pulling ads because the la times states the obvious-GM is a mess

and the mess won't go away by being petty to the LA times.

[illflem]

28. Here's the article that did it:

"An American Idle"
http://www.latimes.com/classified/automotive/highway1/la-hy-neil6apr06,0,4322283.story?coll=la-home-highway1

By Dan Neil
Times Staff Writer

GM utterly missed the boat on hybrid gas-electric technology and lobbied Congress not to raise fuel-economy standards on the grounds that meeting higher standards would divert funds from critical research in the ultimate propulsion technology, hydrogen fuel cells — an argument that, shall we say, lacks authenticity. Today, GM has no hybrids of consequence on the street, while rivals Toyota and Honda are selling as many as they can build.
---------
The Pontiac G6 is a sales flop. At General Motors, let the impeachment proceedings begin.

[DeepModem Mom]

29. Thanks for posting the article, illflem --

interesting!

[Coastie for Truth]

32. Michael Moore's "Roger..." was right on the money

Reference: Michael Moore's "Roger and Me" - http://www.michaelmoore.com/dogeatdogfilms/rogerme.html

Back when Roger Smith was driving GM deeper into the ground, and taking Southeastern Michigan with him -- a group of GM mega-dealers (these were not your 100 cars/year neighborhood dealers of the 1950's - these were the Reedman, and Ptomkin, and Anderson, and Conyers size operations) bought a bunch of GM shares, and attempted to band together into a voting bloc to oust Roger Smith as Chairman. This is when Smith paid off Ross Perot to get off the board (the rumor was that the dealers were backing Perot).

At about the same time a number of first tier vendors (sheet metal, paint, glass, major components - these were much bigger shops then the 100 employee companies that made radio push buttons and seat springs, and arm rest boxes) attempted to vote Smith out of office --> and several of them were forced into Chapter XI when Smith just canceled their contracts.

At about the same time old Roger was strong arming local communities into massive real estate tax breaks -- and then appealing every tax assessment.

The relationships with the dealer community, the vendor community, and Interstate-75 local governments (especially school districts) was so bad that GM's costs actually went up.

This is the stuff that was on the cutting room floor in Michael Moore's "Roger and Me" because it was too convoluted for a 90 minute feature length movie.

As to hybrids and ev's -- in 1992 GM bought the vendor that made (licensed the manufacture) of the NiMH batteries for electric vehicles (and laptops and cell phones, etc.) filed suit against the battery industry - and the electric vehicle manufacturers (and laptop computer manufacturers and cell phone manufacturers). The word was this was just to keep ev's and hybrids off the market. But the settlement gave GM the right to clone every hybrid and sell the clones with GM nameplates. That was over ten years ago. Have you seen a Prius with a Chevy bow tie (like the Matrix/Vibe?)? Neither have I.

The company is suicidal. That culture has not changed.

And Lutz's Harley Earle ads? Gimme a break.

[Frederik]

30. Bring it on!

[Coastie for Truth]

31. GM reverts to Roger "Squeaky" Smith's non-management lack of style

Reference: Michael Moore's "Roger and Me" - http://www.michaelmoore.com/dogeatdogfilms/rogerme.html

Back when Roger Smith was driving GM deeper into the ground, and taking Southeastern Michigan with him -- a group of GM mega-dealers (these were not your 100 cars/year neighborhood dealers of the 1950's - these were the Reedman, and Ptomkin, and Anderson, and Conyers size operations) bought a bunch of GM shares, and attempted to band together into a voting bloc to oust Roger Smith as Chairman. This is when Smith paid off Ross Perot to get off the board (the rumor was that the dealers were backing Perot).

At about the same time a number of first tier vendors (sheet metal, paint, glass, major components - these were much bigger shops then the 100 employee companies that made radio push buttons and seat springs, and arm rest boxes) attempted to vote Smith out of office --> and several of them were forced into Chapter XI when Smith just canceled their contracts.

At about the same time old Roger was strong arming local communities into massive real estate tax breaks -- and then appealing every tax assessment.

The relationships with the dealer community, the vendor community, and Interstate-75 local governments (especially school districts) was so bad that GM's costs actually went up.

This is the stuff that was on the cutting room floor in Michael Moore's "Roger and Me" because it was too convoluted for a 90 minute feature length movie.

As to hybrids and ev's -- in 1992 GM bought the vendor that made (licensed the manufacture) of the NiMH batteries for electric vehicles (and laptops and cell phones, etc.) filed suit against the battery industry - and the electric vehicle manufacturers (and laptop computer manufacturers and cell phone manufacturers). The word was this was just to keep ev's and hybrids off the market. But the settlement gave GM the right to clone every hybrid and sell the clones with GM nameplates. That was over ten years ago. Have you seen a Prius with a Chevy bow tie (like the Matrix/Vibe?)? Neither have I.

The company is suicidal. That culture has not changed.

And Lutz's Harley Earle ads? Gimme a break.

[King Ludwig]

40. That was the time that Smith

paid Perot to leave, came down hard on the dealers, and forced the vendors to buy their CAD/CAM systems from GM's EDS Division (while GM still owned it).

[NNN0LHI]

33. Looks like the writer may be on to something?

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/charts/chartdl.asp?Symbol=GM&ShowChtBt=Refresh+Chart&DateRangeForm=1&CP=0&PT=5&C5=1&C6=&C7=1&C8=&C9=0&ComparisonsForm=1&CE=0&CompSyms=&DisplayForm=1&D5=0&D7=&D6=&D3=0

[nolabels]

34. GM from terrible to more than terrible

Their cars and trucks are junk and par for course their managers and CEO's are idiots. I always hated working on them cars.
This is good news for me, the less of them pieces of crap on the road the better I like it :kick:

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SemperEadem]

35. good

now they can be free to write critical articles on GM cars and their dealers' shady tactics. This will only backfire on GM, and well it should.

[ckramer]

37. GM pulls ads from Los Angeles Times

General Motors Corp. has pulled its advertising from Tribune Co.'s Los Angeles Times, according to a media report Thursday.

At the heart of the issue is "some factual errors and misrepresentations in the editorial coverage," GM spokeswoman Ryndee Carney was quoted as saying in a story in the online version of The Wall Street Journal. "It's not just one story. It's a series of things that have happened over time, and we've made our objections known to the paper, and so we'd like to keep our discussions between us and the paper private."

The Journal said Carney declined to specify the cost of the ads, citing competitive reasons. A Tribune spokesman also declined to specify a figure, telling The Journal, "Our policy is never to comment on the amount of money an advertiser spends with us."

link

[Jack Rabbit]

41. Let's hear it for the LA Times!!

:applause:

[Psephos]

42. Open question: who would prefer to see GM go out of business? n/t