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Editor's Note
Indie Auto shifts from monthly to weekly
Indie Auto is now updating its front page weekly rather than monthly. This is less of a change than you might think. We had already been producing enough content to fill a weekly front page. […]
Media Analysis
Wheel spinning happens when car buffs and scholarly historians don’t collaborate
Car buffs and academics may as well live on different planets when it comes to writing automotive history. Yet they need each other to counterbalance their weaknesses. That’s my takeaway from John A. Heitmann’s essay […]
Editor's Note
Acknowledging the politics of auto history
The auto buff media tends to avoid discussing the political dimensions of the industry for good reason. Readers can have strong views, so why risk antagonizing anyone? Indie Auto doesn’t want to make anyone mad, […]
Editor's Note
Why we’ve been slow to offer comments
Lockstops (2019) concluded that Greens and leftists “are like a cancer.” 28-Cars-Later (2019b) suggested that mercenaries should be hired to “start popping the heads off” members of the European Union Commission. Why the vitriol? Because […]
Media Analysis
The Truth About Cars falsely stokes fears of private car ban
The headline was about as alarmist as you can get for an auto enthusiast website: “UK Parliament Committee Wants to Ban All Private Cars and Trucks by 2050.” Writer Ronnie Schreiber (2019) then proceeded to […]
Current Events
What died when the VW Beetle ended production?
Paul A. Eistenstein’s (2019) story about the end of production for the Volkswagen Beetle makes an odd editorial decision. He treats the Beetle as a unified product line that stretches all the way back to […]
Bird Chatter
Auto Paedia
Access journalism: Did it help fuel U.S. auto industry’s decline?
Access journalism is what the Columbia Journalism Review (2014) defines as providing “insider information from powerful institutions and people.” This is a different kind of reporting — requiring “different skills, different practices, and different sources” that “produce […]
Media Analysis
Retiring editor does the old soft-shoe routine
Richard A. Johnson (2019) recently offered wry reflections about his 35 years at Automotive News. It’s a fitting coda for a longtime reporter and editor of a trade journal that covers such a powerful and […]