Business

Update: Business Reporter Replies to Slams By Carmakers' Former PR Chief

January 24, 2015, 11:39 AM by  Alan Stamm

Poking crudely at a guy who writes for a living is the first punch in what's sure to be a bout of words, yet Jason Vines went there anyhow.

In a new Car and Driver interview quoted here Thursday (below), the former auto industry communications executive calls New York Times business writer Keith Bradsher "an absolute prick" and "a piece of shit." Bradsher was his paper's Detroit bureau chief from 1996-2002 .

The journalist now heads The Times' team in Hong Kong, and responds from there by posting two sizable comments Friday night on the Facebook page of journalism blogger Jim Romenesko, who reported on Vines' harshness earlier in the day.,

He who speaks second speaks longest. The PR executive's 50-word opening shot draws a reply that's nine times longer and incalculably classier.  

Here's what Bradsher says after thanking those who posted supportive comments:

Jason Vines is a hard-edged pr guy. We've been polite to each other over the years, even as we've had some differences of opinion.

I remember when I had a scoop on a second huge batch of unsafe Firestone tires on Ford vehicles, which were about to be subject to another big recall. Jason, as head of Ford pr, was involved with a massive Ford review of all company phone records in an unsuccessful effort to figure out who might have been talking to me about the tires.

Jason left Ford shortly after -- I believe it was unrelated to the phone records search -- and then ran the auto industry-financed "grass roots" group to defend SUVs, Sport Utility Vehicle Owners of America. When my book on SUV safety and environmental issues came out [in 2007], he faxed a dozen pages of out-of-context criticisms to each of more than 100 news organizations, all of it labeled as deep background, not to be attributed to him or to the group. It was to "help" them in reviews of the book, and interviewers at radio and TV stations kept using it as I toured the country.

In a country where reactive public relations is common, Jason was proactive, setting the agenda before the book could appear.

Jason and I have had many cheerful conversations over the years, so I was sorry to see his remark calling me a prick. The truth is that I've always been quietly grateful to him for one thing over the years, and sort of owe him one.

It dates back to when Ford added hollow steel beams below and behind the bumpers of the giant Ford Excursion SUV to reduce the risk that they would override the front ends of cars in collisions, and began modifying other SUVs as well. Ford had done crash tests after my initial articles ran, and Ford engineers discovered that without the bars, the Excursion would run right over the front end of their own Ford Taurus mid-sized sedan and plow through the passenger compartment. With the bars, the Excursion engaged the Taurus crumple zones and a head-on collision became very survivable for crash dummies in the Taurus. Jason organized a press conference at which Ford showed videos of the crash tests with and without the beams.

To a group of other reporters on the sidelines of that press conference, although not to me, Jason said that Ford engineers referred internally to the bars as "Bradsher bars". That effectively coined the term, and I still appreciate it.

If Jason comes through Hong Kong, I'll certainly invite him to the Foreign Correspondents' Club and try to buy him a beer.

So there it is: Class trumps class.

Update, 1:40 p.m. Saturday: Another follow-up comes from Car and Driver's interviewer, freelancer John Pearly Huffman of Los Angeles, who comments on the same Facebook thread as Bradsher.

Here's part of what Huffman, a West Coast auto writer since 1993, posts Saturday afternoon: "There is nothing better for an interviewer than hearing the subject throw off any shackles and express how he really feels. It's amazing how much attention what seems to be unbridled honesty can attract."   

Thursday afternoon article:

Jason Vines certainly practices what he preaches.


Keith Bradsher (left), former New York Times bureau chief in Detroit, and author-consultant Jason Vines.

"Tell it like it is" was among tips he shared Thursday morning with PR pros at a Troy conference, according to tweets from the Public Relations Society of America event.

Vines, a veteran Detroit auto industry communicator, told listeners to value clarity above "linguistic gymnastics" -- as he surely does in a Car and Driver interview.   

The self-employed business adviser, now living in North Carolina, names three "really smart chief executives" he worked under and unloads harshly about three others -- a former Chrysler chief executive, a legendary GM firebrand and a journalist:

  • Bob Nardelll, past Chrysler CEO: "He was completely stupid. . . . He's a clown."
  • Bob Lutz, longtime GM exec: "I was his speechwriter for a while. Bob has a big fucking mouth, and that's what killed him. . . . I love Bob Lutz like a brother, but he's got a big fucking mouth."
  • Keith Bradsher, New York Times bureau chief in Detroit from 1996-2002: "Most of the journalists and I became close friends. The only ones I didn't become friends with were assholes -- like Keith Bradsher of The New York Times. Just an absolute prick. . . . He's a piece of shit." 

Bradsher, a Times writer since 1989, has been the paper's Hong Kong bureau chief since leaving Detroit in 2002.

Vines, a 1984 MSU graduate, was a top communication executive at Nissan North America, Ford and Chrysler from 1998-2008. He's promoting a book published last fall, What Did Jesus Drive? | Crisis PR in Cars, Computers and Christianity

And oh yes, those three guys Vines has nicer words for in Car and Driver:

  • Jacques Nasser, past Ford CEO
  • Dieter Zetsche, current Daimler chief executive
  • Carlos Ghosn, present Renault-Nissan chairman/CEO 



Leave a Comment:

Photo Of The Day