irish motoring jurno's

RobAMerc

Does anyone else read almost anything written by Irish motoring jurno's and think - Christ thats rubbish.

Compared to the UK guy's from mags particularly I find that most of the Irish ones come across as Jurno's who were told to go write about cars as opposed to petrol heads who are writing about what they love.

is it just me ?

rebel.ranter

Hi Rob,
totally agree. Particularly Colley's "Low down" in the Examiner. I AM a petrol head & I skip over that section.
The articles in general seem to be written from the point of view that paying road tax for anything over a 1.6L (old money) is a waste of time. If the MPG is low the car must be bad, irrespective of how well it handles or performs. I know that their place is not to be writing about super cars but I would expect more than just a Corolla driver's point of view. No offence to Corolla drivers intended, they are a good car for the A to B motoring but they don't exactly stir the imagination.

green-blood

I'm with you 1000000%, other than Bob Montgomery and some of the light stuff from Sheridan, the rest are very obviously lazy hacks, info lifted straight from the manufacturers bumf... or worse syndicated from UK and sometimes so badly editted that the text still referes to £ etc. As for the press corp pictures. And do not get me started on teh so caled "racing " corespondents and their weekly lifted from Autosport reports!!!

I assume they will tell you the market is too small, but there is never an excuse for lazy journalism.

I've an A1 from the Leaving in English, all those years ago, i wonder shoudl I give ita try.

pyramuid man

Agree totally.
No passion in any of the irish motoring sections.

PaulieC

Generally agree, but there are exceptions - notably in the Irish Times - where you can see that they are obvious car lovers

L-M

Ha! So true, a lad from a local paper came into us asking if we were going to advertise in there Motoring supplement. All was well, he gave me and example and i said i'd get back to him on it. Got a few mins to spare and read through it.

One of there articles was Top ten dreams cars or something stupid like that. What really annoyed me was the had something like (can't remember the exact cars, just giving and example. It was a month or two back) Porsche 911 as no.5 and in the comments section they were slagging the boxter saying how bad of a car it was. And low and be hold no.6 was the Boxter.

Then i was reading on and they had a picture of the Diahatsu Copen, and underneath saying it was some new concept car.

The point of a motoring pull-out in a newspaper is too have correct information about cars in it, and knowledgeable people writing about them. Not walking into an office one day and saying , "right we're going to add a motoring section, Mary and John, ye can do it"

If i was to go into a shop and buy a car magazine it would be more than likely English. I can't think of much Irish, (besides the likes of the Autotrader) that are actually any good or that have consistency in the market. Alot of bad magazines pop up for a month or two, only the crumble with bad sales.

I'd love to see the Irish having a good go at making a car magazine, or a car show. If they did, i'd give back them and buy it. There is a place in this country for a good magazine, we just need to find the right people do make it.

colm_mcm

most newspapers are so dependant on advertising revenue that they can't give honest apraisals of the cars.

pburns

I remember back in the late '80s Car Driver(?) wasn't too bad. It had continutors like Ted Bonner, Phil Llewelyn, Karl Tsidigos. The latter was an American and a definite petrol-head, They had a tie-in TV show as well - Drive!

Now the mag was no 'CAR' and the show was no 'Top Gear' but this was the late '80s.

How the hell someone couldn't have taken the concept further over the last few years I don't know*...

*'newcar' doesn't count. It's dire...

colm_mcm

Karl Tsidigos really got on my nerves on that TV show. as did Michael Sheridan.

cbyrne

I must say I agree with the OP, i regularly buy Car & Top Gear and sometimes Auto Express and find all three very good. I'm not mad about Autocar though, and what makes sense in the UK doesn't always transmit here..

I often wondered if people who post here and octane and the like and consider them true petrol heads would be willing to do real life reviews of cars and publish online (as previous poster said market probably is too small for print)? I'd happily publish them on my site!! and maybe someone would get the big break to actually getting their articles into the Irish Print arena.

Mind you, prejustices would have to be left at the door which could be a major issue for some

unkel

The Irish Times Motoring section is not bad. I don't read it regularly now, but I used to. I liked Andrew Hamilton, who sadly passed away a few years ago. Bob Montgomery is a legend and even Michael McAleer is fairly ok, but I can't remember ever being impressed with anything Karl Tsigdinos wrote...

RobAMerc

cbyrne wrote: »

I must say I agree with the OP, i regularly buy Car & Top Gear and sometimes Auto Express and find all three very good. I'm not mad about Autocar though, and what makes sense in the UK doesn't always transmit here..

I often wondered if people who post here and octane and the like and consider them true petrol heads would be willing to do real life reviews of cars and publish online (as previous poster said market probably is too small for print)? I'd happily publish them on my site!! and maybe someone would get the big break to actually getting their articles into the Irish Print arena.

Mind you, prejustices would have to be left at the door which could be a major issue for some

Funny, I am a big fan of Autocar - its the one mag I know that every one of the guy's on it is an absolute car nut - they almost all have classics or race at the weekend etc and have a huge wealth of knowledge around motoring.

I would love to have a go at writing reviews, however I would never feel articulate enough to get across what I was on about.

Plus I hate Toyotas and could probably never hide it

L-M

RobAMerc wrote: »

I would love to have a go at writing reviews, however I would never feel articulate enough to get across what I was on about.

Plus I hate Toyotas and could probably never hide it

+1

I can't say that i hate any car makers, there's just one or two that i haven't ever invested a huge interest in.

cbyrne

RobAMerc wrote: »

Funny, I am a big fan of Autocar - its the one mag I know that every one of the guy's on it is an absolute car nut - they almost all have classics or race at the weekend etc and have a huge wealth of knowledge around motoring.

I would love to have a go at writing reviews, however I would never feel articulate enough to get across what I was on about.

Plus I hate Toyotas and could probably never hide it

I know what you mean about Autocar, I used to read it all of the time, but I found exactly what your saying in that it was a group of lads who had a particular view and that view never changed throughout the issues over the years, almost like they were journos for so long and they had a group of cars that were the best or should be the best and that was it, to be honest i found them sorta condascending! Top Gear I find good in that it had articles about driving and other stuff in general, whereas Autoexpress is more about the everyday cars we drive as opposed to the Astons and Porsches!
Still, I suppose it depends on what each person wants out of a mag.

>>I would love to have a go at writing reviews, however I would never feel articulate enough to get across what I was on about.

Sure you never know till you try! At least the good thing about the 'net is you could have a crack at it and nothing lost if its crap!!

Zube

RobAMerc wrote: »

Plus I hate Toyotas and could probably never hide it

Doesn't seem to be a bar to working at CAR or Top Gear!

alpina

cambo_gueno wrote: »

Generally agree, but there are exceptions - notably in the Irish Times - where you can see that they are obvious car lovers

I may be wrong on this & apologies to poster if so, but did the Irish Times not so long ago do an article on the post July VRT changes for our benefit (according to them in the byline) & totally got the details all wrong; ie the facts on car taxing in ref. to 2nd hand cars being imported before/after July.

Don't really know what this says about car lovers...

mike65

There will never be a L. J. K. Setright (love him or loathe him!) or indeed a Mike Rutherford here, no car culture means no breeding ground.

When the Alfa 155 arrived here, Irish Car (POS) had an article in the news section, which alluded to how such a car may have difficulty finding sales " down the country". Priceless moment from that rag, they were right insofar as it was not a good car and there were only 9 Alfa dealers in the country back then, half of them in Dublin/Naas.

Mike.

PaulieC

alpina wrote: »

I may be wrong on this & apologies to poster if so, but did the Irish Times not so long ago do an article on the post July VRT changes for our benefit (according to them in the byline) & totally got the details all wrong; ie the facts on car taxing in ref. to 2nd hand cars being imported before/after July.

Don't really know what this says about car lovers...

yeah, I remember that. However, to love cars doesn't mean you have to know the ins and outs of government policy and laws , does it?

RobAMerc

Zube wrote: »

Doesn't seem to be a bar to working at CAR or Top Gear!

Maybe Car, Top Gear and I are right ???

I don't read either by the way, its an opinion I formed myself.

G Luxel

I recently read in one of the local motoring sections that the toyota avalon and the echo were new on the irish market, until I noticed that in fact the story was copied from the US toyota website and no reference made of Ireland so looks like someone was goggling the wrong website for their story.

Rowley Birkin QC

What was the name of that programme RTE had a few years back with Michael Sheridan, Karl Tsigdinos and that lady racing driver?

As for reading anything in Irish publications, I get the distinct impression that the journo's haven't actually driven the car in question.

mike65

Drive is was called, could have been developed into something better than it was. At the time RTE was comissioning then dropping shows left, right and centre. They reviewed tractors!

Mike

unkel

alpina wrote: »

did the Irish Times not so long ago do an article on the post July VRT changes for our benefit (according to them in the byline) & totally got the details all wrong

They should have checked with us first

RobAMerc

I remember a review from Tsidigos (N a deeply irritating man but a genuine car nut) - drove a Puma Racing off the track and commented "Look its going up on the grass"

Imagine Schuey going into the office after he over cooked it into a corner and said to Jean Todt - "Its not my fault, the car just went up on the grass !"

maidhc

I don't think it is fair just to blame Irish motoring journos. As already mentioned the Irish Times has a good supplement.

Also, J.C. or Top gear are not really an example of anything other than how spoilt rich kids may behave if they failed to grow up. From what I can see T.G. has turned into a entertainment/chat show which just happens to involve cars. One striking example was a recent T.G. where Clarkson was driving around in a Terios followed by hounds. It was mildly entertaining, but had nothing to do with motoring apart from indicating in a roundabout way the Terios is reasonably competent offroad. The magazine is probably a bit better, but still very lacking in depth.

Auto express is just a rag that makes random pronouncments on new cars and has little but fawning reviews of each an every new car. Every so often they publish a picture of a blob and we are told it is an exclusive.

Most stuff written and said about cars is rubbish, no matter where the source.

RobAMerc

maidhc wrote: »

I don't think it is fair just to blame Irish motoring journos. As already mentioned the Irish Times has a good supplement.

Also, J.C. or Top gear are not really an example of anything other than how spoilt rich kids may behave if they failed to grow up. From what I can see T.G. has turned into a entertainment/chat show which just happens to involve cars. One striking example was a recent T.G. where Clarkson was driving around in a Terios followed by hounds. It was mildly entertaining, but had nothing to do with motoring apart from indicating in a roundabout way the Terios is reasonably competent offroad. The magazine is probably a bit better, but still very lacking in depth.

Auto express is just a rag that makes random pronouncments on new cars and has little but fawning reviews of each an every new car. Every so often they publish a picture of a blob and we are told it is an exclusive.

Most stuff written and said about cars is rubbish, no matter where the source.

Sorry I don't agree with the last statement - as for TG, well at least we know they like cars but your dead right its not a car mag its car based entertainment. Fifth gear is much more like it, but the Irish lads are Jurno's first and car nuts well maybe..... 10th ?

Esel

green-blood wrote: »

I'm with you 1000000%, other than Bob Montgomery and some of the light stuff from Sheridan, the rest are very obviously lazy hacks, info lifted straight from the manufacturers bumf... or worse syndicated from UK and sometimes so badly editted that the text still referes to £ etc. As for the press corp pictures. And do not get me started on teh so caled "racing " corespondents and their weekly lifted from Autosport reports!!!

I assume they will tell you the market is too small, but there is never an excuse for lazy journalism.

I've an A1 from the Leaving in English, all those years ago, i wonder shoudl I give ita try.

I wouldn't. Ordinary level, yeah?

mike65 wrote: »

There will never be a L. J. K. Setright (love him or loathe him!) or indeed a Mike Rutherford here, no car culture means no breeding ground.Mike.

LJK Setright - what a brilliant writer! I used to love his articles in Bike all those years ago, didn't know then that he also wrote about cars. Most erudite motoring journalist ever, imo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LJK_Setright

E92

bigkev49 wrote: »

What was the name of that programme RTE had a few years back with Michael Sheridan, Karl Tsigdinos and that lady racing driver?

As for reading anything in Irish publications, I get the distinct impression that the journos haven't actually driven the car in question.

That actually was a very good show.(yes I remember it)

Karl Tsigdinos was a legend of a man, he used to profess his profound distaste of diesels whenever he possibly could:D!

He actually was a very good journalist, I could never understand why the Sunday Times didn't bother keeping him(he used to do test drives when they revamped it 5-6 years ago and tried to Irishise it somewhat for a short while)

Where did he ever end up after that?

Michael Sheridan is the best motoring journalist in this country these days.

Eddie Cunningham arse licks the manufacturers WAY too much.

I only bother reading the Irish car mags so that I know what models we're getting, what's standard and what they cost but that's it. In terms of the quality of reviews the Brits are way ahead of us. The Daily Telegraph's Motoring supplement on a Saturday is excellent.

Autocar is the best magazine bar none out there.

They have no hesitation in slating cars and do their best to convince us that we need more than monoboxes with pint sized engines.

I'm sorry to confess that I'm a complete Jezza Clarkson fanatic as well.

Top Gear is much more an entertainment show than a car show but they do a lot better than we can ever do to get rid of all the motoring myths like speeding, global warming etc. They constantly promote fast cars and more to the point are able to justify all the things any self respecting petrolhead(I would consider myself to be one of the few petrolheads in this forum because not only don't I not like diesel, but I constantly broadcast my dislike of diesel whenever I get the chance) loves about cars, like why more cylinders are better, why 0-60 matters, the need for going fast etc.

Terrontress

I remember reading Karl Tsingdinos in the Sunday Times. He never gave a bad review to any car. I just got use impression that he was so happy to get free use of a brand new car that he said it was brilliant. Clarkson would say an Opel Vectra was awful one week. 2 weeks later Tsingdinos says it's just what the Irish market is waiting for.

mike65

The two statements are not contradictory, a car can be ****e and also be just what a market segment is waiting for (that market segment being suburban dullards).

Mike.

E92

Terrontress wrote: »

I remember reading Karl Tsingdinos in the Sunday Times. He never gave a bad review to any car. I just got use impression that he was so happy to get free use of a brand new car that he said it was brilliant. Clarkson would say an Opel Vectra was awful one week. 2 weeks later Tsingdinos says it's just what the Irish market is waiting for.

I remember him being well capable of finding flaws in cars(particularly in Drive!) - either way he was a true petrolhead and knew cars inside out.

I love when Clarkson goes on the rampage about a car being bad. His "reviews" of the Lada Riva, Yugo 45 and Volvo 340 are up there with the best in motoring history.

I've yet to see his infamous test of the Vectra B 12 years ago:o.

Is there anywhere I might possibly be able to see that on the internet?

You'd think it wouldn't be that hard considering TG is the most pirated show in the world apparently.

peasant

E92 wrote: »

I
Is there anywhere I might possibly be able to see that on the internet?

You'd think it wouldn't be that hard considering TG is the most pirated show in the world apparently.

You do know that linking to copyrighted material is a bannable offence? Please dont' ask others to do so.

mike65

ROFL! If linking youtube is now bannable you better tell the music mods, Anyway I looked an its not there but there is a 6 min review of the previous model by William Wollard which feels like another world.

Mike.

peasant

Did I mention youtube?

There's a whole other world of illegal stuff out there ...

Panda Moanium

Interesting to read the opinions here.

Undoubtedly Irish car reviews tend on the whole to be fairly bland compared to some of the better UK offerings, however I would suggest that anyone here that thinks its as simple as that should try to submit a critical review (or indeed an overtly colour piece in the Clarkson vein) to an Irish magazine or newspaper and see how far you get. Almost certainly no further than the sub-editor's waste paper basket.

The fact of the matter is that virtually every Irish motoring magazine or newspaper supplement exists because of advertising revenue, and the powers that be within these publications are not going to risk that with controversial copy.

Also, perhaps because there has never been a tradition of it here, but most publications are reluctant to use colour pieces that deviate from the standard car review. Try waxing lyrical about taking an M3 for an early morning spin on a Tuscan mountain road, and your copy will probably make it to print edited down to something like 'The BMW handles well on twisty roads". I know....I've tried!

Having said all that, there's no doubt that there are too many Irish motoring hacks putting out unimaginative and regurgitated press releases. For sure there are a number of genuine and knowledgeable petrol heads, but at least as many are in it for the perks. They happily attend events and lap up the freebies but as regards trying to explore the finer handling capabilities of a new car....forget it!.

Just a couple of examples which I've observed....On your typical new car launch, given a choice of a testing mountain road, or a direct route, three quarters of Irish driven cars will probably make a bee-line straight for the hotel. And its always amazing to see how many will opt out of driving on race tracks when the opportunity arises.

mcwhirter

RobAMerc wrote: »

Does anyone else read almost anything written by Irish motoring jurno's and think - Christ thats rubbish.

Compared to the UK guy's from mags particularly I find that most of the Irish ones come across as Jurno's who were told to go write about cars as opposed to petrol heads who are writing about what they love.

is it just me ?

Eddie Cunningham-irish independent:eek:

Is it possible that the reason why the motor journalists are poor here, is because there has never been cars designed and manufactured here and it is therefore not in their blood

RobAMerc

mcwhirter wrote: »

Is it possible that the reason why the motor journalists are poor here, is because there has never been cars designed and manufactured here and it is therefore not in their blood

Ok - I will admit having an indigenous car manufacturer may have an effect on the quantity of motoring nuts in the general public, but there are a good few enthusiasts here in Ireland - did we all come in from another country ?

BTW -Fords were made here at one point remember

pburns

Panda Moanium wrote: »

Having said all that, there's no doubt that there are too many Irish motoring hacks putting out unimaginative and regurgitated press releases. For sure there are a number of genuine and knowledgeable petrol heads, but at least as many are in it for the perks. They happily attend events and lap up the freebies but as regards trying to explore the finer handling capabilities of a new car....forget it!.

Just a couple of examples which I've observed....On your typical new car launch, given a choice of a testing mountain road, or a direct route, three quarters of Irish driven cars will probably make a bee-line straight for the hotel. And its always amazing to see how many will opt out of driving on race tracks when the opportunity arises.

That just pisses me off! I dare say there are a few people on here who would hack off a part of their anatomy for this kind of job...

Regarding current journos, my favorite is probably CAR's Gavin Green. He seems to have a passion for everything from a 2CV to a Ferrari GTO and has the perspective of having worked in the industry for a few years also. He was editor of CAR duriing it's late '80s zenith and is now kinda the elder statesman over there.

At one point in the early 90s CAR had Setright, Phil Llyellen, Russell Bulgin and George Bishop as columnists. Bishop was a WWII vetern who had been at Dunkirk and wrote mostly about the gastronomic delights and gossip of launches. It was actually fascinating! All were completely different and all are now passed away (amazingly), Llyellen and Bulgin before their times.

Richard Porter (Sniff Petrol) is good. He writes for EVO and contributes to a podcast called 'Gareth Jones on Speed' (http://www.garethjones.tv/speedrss.xml). If you can ignore the cringe-worthy impersonations and songs it can be pretty good.

Terrontress

And Rovers too?

Jason Dawe is a successful motoring journalist from Northern Ireland and the only manufacturing that has gone on up there was De Lorean.

piaget

Hi All, I used to work for Car Driver/Drive magazine in the 90's and worked with Karl Tsigdinos and the reason why the editorial was so bad was because it was completely driven by advertising revenue even to the point where if there was'nt enough money in the ad book then the magazine would not be published that month, that's why you had so many bi-monthly issues or issues coming out on the very last day of the month. They were terrified of slating a car in case the distributor turned against them. Editorials were written for car radios, tyres etc mentioning only brands that had advertised that issue, lazy press releases published verbatim to fill out pages. The idea of long term tests (Rover 214, Subaru Legacy) was used so the missus could have a free car. Even FSO's, Lada would be given the thumbs up if they took out an ad. It was an embarrasment even comparing it side by side with the english mags and they even justified it by saying they used better quality paper.
Car Buyers Guide is probably the only semi-decent irish mag around and a long way behind the UK.

mike65

Thaks for the insight and confirmation of all that was suspected. Magazine publishing is expensive, the market is tiny and the advertising clients rule the roost.

It should be noted a negative review has damn all impact on sales, as Clarkson proved for years (and which he noted himself).

Mike.

L-M

How about we export to England lol

Darsad

All Irish Motoring corrospondents are NUJ card holders and it is a perk of the job or paper they write for so none of them would know a laughing shaft from a giggling pin. They collect the cars from distributors with a full tank and its not uncommon for them to present bills for fuel if the tank didnt quite get them through the week. In my opinion they are second only to restaurant critics.

cyclopath2001

mcwhirter wrote: »

Is it possible that the reason why the motor journalists are poor here, is because there has never been cars designed and manufactured here and it is therefore not in their blood

Except, maybe this one, I remember reading about it in the papers long before we had the InterWeb



From Wikipedia

The Shamrock was a car produced in Ireland for a brief period during the 1950's.

The business was established by an American businessman, William K Curtis in Tralee, Co. Kerry, but was moved to Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan, before production began. The aim was to produce a large luxury car model for export to the US market.

Seth Brundle

I think one point regarding Irish motoring articles is that thy are often written about cars that have been on sale for some time or that have received abundant coverage by the UK mags and also on the internet.
It indicates that they are written for those not interested in motors. My wife gets the AA mag and its the biggest piece of crap but thankfully its not why she is a member. Ignoring the obvious AA advertising etc. the car reviews are for cars that have been on the roads for months. Whats the point? 'er indoors doesn't read them (too busy cooking and cleaning) and I couldn't be arsed reading an article about the 'latest' Corsa which I have seen every day for ages!

Oilrig

Guys, Panda has it in one.

piaget, we must have met... I used to deal with Karl (nice guy) and Colm in the nineties, would have been a regular visitor...

Advertising revenue rules...

unkel

E92 wrote: »

Karl Tsigdinos was a legend of a man

E92 wrote: »

He actually was a very good journalist

E92 wrote: »

he was a true petrolhead and knew cars inside out

That's some admiration there :eek:

Maybe me memory is failing me in my old age, but he just used to annoy me. Can't remember why

Terrontress wrote: »

Jason Dawe is a successful motoring journalist from Northern Ireland

Didn't know he was from the North. I like him. WYSIWYG

Seth Brundle

unkel wrote: »

That's some admiration there :eek:

Maybe me memory is failing me in my old age, but he just used to annoy me. Can't remember why

I thought I was in a silent minority here - I never warmed to him at all.