The Auto Writer

On most days I truly like my job.

I wake up in the morning, log on, surf the ‘net and check my email. At some point during the early hours I look over my writing assignments for the day and triple check the news to see what might be of interest to my readers.

On any given day I’m writing 3-5 articles about cars, car parts, auto industry news, automotive gadgets, just about anything related to passenger vehicles. Rare is the day that some sort of new product isn’t being announced, a concept car rolled out, or something else of interest happening around the world.

Lately, the news has been, well, sucky.

I’m still getting plenty of announcements about new products, but I’m also receiving more grim news than what I would like to share. While I was busy crafting my January 2009 U.S. sales article on Monday night, I was hard pressed to find good news. True, Hyundai, Subaru and Kia were up for the month, but not one of the big full line sellers were.

In fact, the news coming out of Detroit is downright depressing.

Too few of us can do much about helping the auto industry unless we make the decision to go out and buy a new car. Honestly, I cannot say that the timing for buying a car is especially good right now as consumer confidence is down. As in way down.

And, why shouldn’t it be? If you weren’t laid off recently do you feel good about your current job? If not, you’ll put off big ticket purchases until you absolutely must. That home you were planning to buy in 2008 won’t be bought until later in 2009, probably 2010 at the soonest for most.

That old car you have in your driveway may not be the ride you want, but it will do you for at least another year or two. Besides, you’ve rediscovered how to work on your car or have come to the realization that updating your wheels yourself is kind of fun.

In a somewhat related matter, those news releases peppering my inbox are a big help. But, they’re also a source of aggravation when my request for a follow up interview or related photograph are ignored or responded to well after the fact.

I’m not sure if I’m on someone’s spam list or not; if not, I don’t have the time for lots of back and forth conversations — please send to me what you have and I’ll decide if, when and how I’ll share that information.

I like to think that we’ll get through these times just fine. We have in the past and we will do so as the months go by. I’m resolute to make sure that I bring to you timely and interesting news, but must admit that I may steer clear of some of the “downers” plaguing the auto industry right now.

I don’t expect you’ll find your daily pick me up when you drop in to this site, but I certainly don’t want to constantly add fuel to the “negative news” fire either. There must be some good news out there and, by golly, I plan on finding it.

Thanks for reading my rant. Rant now over.