Posted on 08/10/2005 10:24:35 AM PDT by Pikamax
Michigan Columnist Canned After Column Rips American Automakers
By Joe Strupp
Published: August 10, 2005 12:15 PM ET
NEW YORK A Michigan newspaper columnist who was fired Tuesday claims his dismissal was punishment for a column he wrote on Saturday criticizing American cars.
James Briggs, a former columnist and news editor at The Daily Telegram of Adrian, Mich., says the publisher canned him for writing the column that upset auto dealers and others so close to Detroit's auto manufacturing power houses. The publisher told E&P that auto advertisers did complain, but says there's more to it than that.
"I was in a meeting with my boss [editor Mark Lenz] and the publisher came in and berated me for half an hour," Brigg said, describing the Tuesday morning meeting at the afternoon paper. "He said I needed to understand the consequences of what I wrote."
What he wrote was a column in Saturday's paper that described his decision to switch from driving an American car to a foreign model. "Maybe I'm hitting a late rebellious streak. Maybe I'm simply unpatriotic, ungrateful or un-American," the column said, in part. "Or maybe the domestic automakers have slipped so far down that purchasing an American vehicle has become moronic. I'll go with that answer."
Briggs, 24, said he received no feedback from the newspaper until Tuesday morning when Publisher Paul Heidbreder approached him during his meeting with Lenz. "He said it was insensitive for me to write such a column given our proximity to the Big Three [automakers]," Briggs said. "He tried to get me to at least apologize and I was not going to apologize because I believe what I wrote."
Lenz, who did not respond to a request for comment, reviewed the column prior to publication, Briggs said. The column is still up on the paper's Web site as of Wednesday afternoon.
The former columnist said he was summoned to another meeting with the publisher later that day where he was dismissed. He said Heidbreder claimed the paper had lost upwards of $100,000 in auto ads because of the column.
The publisher told E&P today the termination was not based solely on the column. He also said no advertising had been lost so far, although some auto dealers had threatened to pull ads.
"The auto dealers threat was not what led to his termination," said Heidbreder, who has been publisher since early June. "His account of the events is inaccurate. But I am not going to comment further on personnel matters." The publisher also contends that when he fired Briggs, he offered to give him an explanation, but the columnist said he did not need one.
As the column states, Briggs said he wanted to write the piece to show his disgust with American cars after owning at least three General Motors vehicles, starting with a Chevy pick-up he bought from his grandfather, a former GM employee.
"I thought it would be an interesting column because we are so close to Detroit," Briggs said today. "I am also sick of people around here making other people feel bad for purchasing a foreign vehicle. I don't agree with it."
The Daily Telegraph is owned by Liberty Group Publishing of Northbrook, Ill., and has a daily circulation of 15,374.
You would be hard-pressed to find a more un-American group than the United Auto Workers.
Oh look, the unions and the mafia control Detroit. What a surprise...
Smells like UNIONS.
Yes and for a full preview of what unions do to a community start in the center of Detroit and drive east.
His argument, and his employer's response, would have been intelligible in the 1950's. In today's economic environment it's the equivalent of counting the angels on the head of a pin.
I'm a UAW member and while there is a number of the rank and file that are philosophically challenged, most are American to the core.
The publisher told E&P that auto advertisers did complain, but says there's more to it than that.
__________________
Sure there is.
He should have apologized "I'm sorry your cars suck".
Where in the world has this guy been? For quite a while I would have agreed completely with him - Japanese cars were build to last, American cars weren't. American cars have improved greatly since the bad old days of the 70's and 80's.
A second problem with his idea is what is an American car and what is foreign? I really don't care where a company holds its board meeting. An American car is defined by where it is built and where its parts came from. A Honda built in the US is more of an American car than a Chevy build in Canada.
His employer’s opinion: "You're fired!"
Is there a problem?
Well, I don't know about unamerican.. but certainly harder to find a group with such a high percentage taking recreational drugs on the job.
The article in question: http://www.lenconnect.com/articles/2005/08/06/news/news06.txt
Sorry, Lee; we're finding better cars
Friday, August 5, 2005 11:23 PM EDT
Commentary by James Briggs
My first vehicle was a red and white 1982 Chevy S-10 pickup - fully loaded with broken air conditioning and a set of Superman stickers I had plastered to the glove box when I was 7. No matter. To a 16-year-old kid, it was a topnotch performance machine.
I bought the truck from my grandfather, a retired General Motors Corp. employee whose garage has overflowed with GM products for as long as I've been alive. Just this year, he has added two more to the fleet.
He's always sworn by GM products - and sworn at those who dared purchase something different. That includes my mother, who switched to Ford - Ford! - when I was a child. She has switched back to GM.
Given that family history, I was more than a little uncomfortable to see my grandfather this spring. Because after driving four GM vehicles - including that trusty S-10, which I hear has served at least two owners faithfully since me - I jumped ship to a foreign automaker.
Maybe I'm hitting a late rebellious streak. Maybe I'm simply unpatriotic, ungrateful or un-American.
Or maybe the domestic automakers have slipped so far down that purchasing an American vehicle has become moronic. I'll go with that answer.
Because even with access to the GM employee discount - before each of the domestic automakers were handing them out like balloons at a tent sale - I found time after time that foreign vehicles come with a smaller price tag and more than twice the warrantee as what the Big Three offer.
I traveled to dozens of dealerships and searched every auto Web site I could find. Invariably, I reached the same conclusions at every turn: Foreign cars are more dependable and less costly.
Finally, common sense trampled my American ego - especially when I realized the GM vehicle I was driving had been built in Mexico, while the Japanese vehicle I was test-driving had been built in Indiana. Which one is more American?
Like Henry Ford did decades earlier, the foreign automakers have found a better and more efficient way to produce automobiles. Soaring health care costs, a lack of imagination and a sad trend of stagnation have left the Big Three in the dust.
How have they responded? By offering more incentives than a Las Vegas casino. Sorry, but all incentives do is suggest the vehicles were overpriced to begin with.
Today, Chrysler Group is launching the fourth and final commercial featuring former chairman Lee Iacocca. In it, Iacocca is portrayed as a golfing buddy of rapper/felon Snoop Dogg. The idea is to link the auto industry's glorious past with today's young buyer.
Unfortunately for the flailing automaker, Iacocca might still know more about cars than any of its current executives. And unfortunately for Iacocca, millions of people have taken his famous advice from the 1970s: "If you can find a better car, buy it."
I did, and I did. After buying three brand-new malfunction-prone American cars - all of which made me long for that old S-10 - I had enough. The decision to buy foreign, I told myself, was the right one.
But the guilt festered until - like a child who had thrown a baseball through a window - I had to admit the sin to my grandfather. I showed him my car, and we discussed several things - its engine, its handling ability - but not its origin, until I reluctantly brought it up.
"So Š it's not a GM," I said, as though I had just discovered the fact.
"No, it's not," my grandfather shrugged. "But it looks sharp. And the Japanese cars are less money these days, anyway."
And with that - a virtual blessing from a man who raised his family on GM - my guilt slipped away.
And with that, the Big Three should be frightened.
No longer boasting the best products or the lowest prices, domestic automakers are losing their strongest selling point: bullish American pride.
My best memories of GM are fading away in the rearview mirror of that 1982 pickup. But I long for the day when the domestic automakers look clearly into the future - and give us a reason to do the same.
James Briggs is news editor of The Daily Telegram. Contact him at 517-265-5111, ext. 265, or jbriggs@lenconnect.com.
I beg your pardon, then. Truly. Still, you will probably understand why people here are suspicious of UAW members. Is it just a few UAW members who spoil it for the rest, or is it a sizable minority?
And why are all the others silent? Forgive the inquisitiveness, but I want to get the real story from you, since you're both a FReeper and a UAW member.
Thank you for speaking up, and I apologize for painting with too broad a brush. My disgust and contempt should have been directed at the UAW leadership, especially its president.
I was wrong. He did cover the "What is really an American car?" question.
The guy is 24 years old. This could be considered a learning experience. Most newspapers are smart enough not to bash their major advertisers. One exception was a local editor who demanded higher sales taxes to pay teachers more (his wife was a teacher, BTW). The car dealers threatened to pull their ads, the editor threw a fit on the editorial page, and the publisher fired him. As if you couldn't guess, the editor was a knee-jerk RAT.
Most cars both foreign & domestic are far better than they were 20 to 30 years ago and with proper maintenance will run with relatively few problems for over 100,000 miles.
The biggest problem I have with today's cars is design. Lined up next to each, it's difficult to tell one make from another whether they're foreign or domestic. They all have the same bland rounded shape which helps improve their gas mileage I'm sure but does little to inspire driving passion among those who buy their cars for more than just getting them from point A to point B.
Well I read the column he wrote and found it to be pretty truthful. But I agree with the publisher, that more care should have been taken in running the story, seeing as to how it affects the money stream at the paper.
But I can't help but wonder how the piece got past the editor in the first place? Isn't it his responsiblity to run or not run a piece?
Sounds like the captian was asleep at the helm, and the poor 1st mate gets the blame.
It just goes to prove that ole saying,"S^&* flows down hill".
the legacy health care costs the big 2 1/2 face that the newer japanese plants in the US don't have yet are a major issue in this.
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