I don’t know about you, but I always wait with baited breath for my latest copy of Fleet Owner to arrive in the mail. That, along the recent free issue of Light & Medium Truck, makes me want to relax in my easy chair and tune in the AM radio and listen that big band sound. I undo my tie and sweater from a another day at the office, push aside the Reader’s Digest and light my pipe while I savor the in-depth journalistic gems by Sean Kilcarr and Tim Brady. So amazing are the fric and frac of trucking investigative reporting, that I was so into their articles that I missed my maid, Elsa’s, call for supper. We’re having pork roast tonight.
I flipped the page to an “article” (ATA PR) by Deborah Whistler entitled “National Driver Appreciation Week Kicks Off”. “Celebrations this week range from safe driving awards to cookouts at company facilities to windshield cleaning at travel plazas. Many events include the families who support their loved ones out on the road. Governors and local leaders are issuing proclamations in honor of the professional truck driver, and industry executives are hitting the airwaves to let America know there is a safe professional behind the wheel who deserves a pat on the back.”
The other “offerings” by Fleet Owner give me goose bumps from excitement. Did you know (wink,wink) that TMC is updating the radial tire. OMG, shut the front door! What about this hot item, Trojan Battery has a new global senior vice-president! I know, I know, quite a story! But wait, Sean Kilcarr, hold the presses, reports that “supply issues could cripple biofuel use”. I know, I know, just terrible isn’t it? Get Kilcarr on the phone for interview!
Well, rest assured Fleet Owner didn’t stop there. Editors, Tom Duncan and Jim Mele have all “their” bases covered. They have their crack investigative writing staff right on top of “Love’s installing cordless fuel systems” as well as – take a deep breath, this is astonishing – “Automatic tire chain for Terrastar released”. No matter what side of the desk you’re on, this is sure news you can use. I can’t imagine how anyone in trucking and fleet management can exist a day without their copy of Fleet Owner.
Can you understand the dilemma that someone managing a commercial, public, utility and telecom fleet has when having these two fine publications in their hand. Editors Jim Galligan and Joe Howard at the helm of Light & Medium Trucking trying to outdo Fleet Owner trying to land the “big” stories. In the September 2011 issue, turn to page 30, “Yard Sale in the Big Easy” by Mary Foster of the Associated Press. Why, apparently, there is just so much trucking and fleet news to investigate, that all 7 of their writers and 4 of their copy editors were so busy that they need to use a “filler” from the AP.
The 250 word “piece” by Dan Calabrese called “Using RFID to track registrations” had me on the edge of my seat. I love reading stuff about Bermuda. Then there are the delightful and informative PR - public relations – “ditties” by Hertz, GM, NAVISTAR, Progressive and Nissan. 38 pages of “wow” information. That piece on the last page “Tempers Flare Over Water Cooler” – about “state leadership” cancelling bottled water deliveries” was awesome.
Here’s the deal. I would be embarrassed publishing these two magazines in their present format. There is no reporting. The writing is collegiate. It is pure PR fluff. It’s easy to be a paid mouthpiece for the childish nonsense that is spewed out by the American Trucking Association. Writing boilerplate drivel about a National Driver Appreciation Week is a joke. Windshield cleanings and cookouts? Are they kidding? What’s next, see the shiny chrome on the big wheels of OOIDA’s membership truck? Give me a freak’n break.
While Life On The Road reports the truth about trucking, the people who have sold out to big business, the ATA and OOIDA, and call themselves writers about trucking, logistics and fleet management, etc. sit in their high-rise offices with copy editors, web staff, three or more levels of senior editors with sales and advertising support. They travel to conventions and get paid decent salaries with benefits, supported by the advertisers they can’t say anything negative about. It’s “journalism” 2011. Thinking and asking serious probing questions is not their job, they don’t have the guts or the experience to anything meaningful.
And they know it. That’s why they put down bloggers and sites like Life On The Road. Tim Brady says pay $50 and join the Truck Writers of whatever. Why? So we can sell out like all of you have. I don’t think so. I’ve fought this arrogant holier-than-thou corporate-speak BS for 30+ years. It’s an I’ll scratch yours and you scratch mine circle of get paid easy money and write for Fleet Owner, get supported by the ATA and the big-pocket truck manufacturers and suppliers, be featured on the Lockridge Report, and go play golf in Vegas with OOIDA. That’s the closed “club” of trucking.
That’s why nothing gets done in trucking – that why driver’s are and will remain at the bottom of the barrel in terms of respect, pay and benefits. Go enjoy your week of cookouts, windshield washings and proclamations, children.
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