Indictment of journalism - Kobe's Beef

Automotive Industries,  Sept, 2002  by Gerry Kobe

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I usually "Beef" about some glaring oversight on the part of automakers, management or perhaps even the supply community, but this month's Installment is aimed straight at the journalists that cover the automobile industry. Or to be more specific, the journalists that hurt the very industry they are supposedly covering.

I'm particularly irked by a spate of recent misinformed comments and articles about GM's fuel cell program. Topping my list is the theory forwarded by some "creative" journalist who hypothesizes that perhaps GM'S FG program isn't really a legitimate program at all. Instead, the reporter speculates, GM'S efforts might actually be a smokescreen to get the government to give the industry some breathing room on higher CAFE standards.

Boy, that's a great story -- baseless fiction to be sure, but a great story.

Another popular tack for the press is to point out every technological open issue under the sun relative to fuel cells, and why those issues are bigger than GM'S efforts. But being a technical guy myself I have to tell those journalists to go back to Technology 101 and relearn a very basic fact: If a technology doesn't have open issues, it isn't new.

Of course, the real impetus for all this media skepticism stems from the negative comments from GM'S competitors, who, by the way, have a fairly obvious agenda--at least it's obvious to me anyway. I mean, come on fellow journalists, what do you expect the competition to say about GM? But the Fact is, that's exactly the case. GM is focusing its efforts on how to make these things affordable and the rest of the industry is kicking itself that it chose to focus on how to make one or two at a time.

Furthermore, the so-called "insolvable issue" of infrastructure is not going to be an issue when the time comes. GM will hone the technology, then build vehicles that will go into fleet service or be delivered to municipalities where special arrangements for fueling can be easily made. That will then become the model for fuel cells sold to the general public

No rocket science here, just common sense.

Now I'm not saying that the road to mass-produced fuel cells is going to be a walk in the park. But I'm glad to see that at least one automaker is taking the full-speed-ahead approach that is so prevalent in progressive industries like electronics.

Take digital TV for example. If some of these naysaying auto journalists were to change beats and cover consumer electronics I'm sure they'd be calling Sony and Panasonic and Mitsubishi foolish for investing so heavily in digital television. After all, it's hideously expensive, lacks an infrastructure and there are cheaper and more proven technologies out there that can improve reception. But electronics companies know that good science and innovation will create its own market and that is the kind of thinking that Detroit has needed for a long time.

It's ironic to me that as I write this I recall a conversation I had years ago with a now retired GM public relations person. He told me that in his experience, no matter what GM does it's going to be brutalized in the press by somebody who can't think of a legitimate story. It seems that was a pretty accurate indictment of journalism.

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