Is there corruption in the automobile magazine industry? Do auto makers pay off publishers for good reviews?

The same question is asked of other specialist publications, such as tech magazines, which I work on (although I’ve worked for a company that also publishes car mags). The answer basically is no, that’s not how it works.Managers in the publishing industry with the job title ‘Publisher’ (just to clarify that’s what we mean) are not generally averse to getting money by any means it can be got, and they won’t mind me saying that – it’s their job. Funding quality journalism is hard. It’s a hustle. So it’s not inconceivable that if a car maker (or mobile phone maker, or whatever) came straight out and said ‘If you give this car a great review, we’ll book $100,000 of advertising’, a publisher just might start thinking how to make that happen.But what does the publisher do now? Go to the editor and instruct her to run a positive review? Oops, your editor and her entire team are sitting in the boardroom waiting for your CEO to arrive to hear why no work is getting done on the next issue of the magazine until you’re fired.Let’s say your editor is amenable. Things are pretty tough in the magazine market. Maybe he graduated from one of those ‘journalism and PR’ courses and got a bit confused. Whatever the reason for his sudden complete lack of ethics, now he has to find a writer he can pay to write a positive review, regardless of what she finds out about the car.Keep in mind that everyone who works in the car industry is going to know the truth about this car (or whatever product it is) within a week or so of test units being made available. The only way your scummy paid-for sycophantic review isn’t going to stick out like a sore thumb is if everyone else says the car is great too. If that happens, whoever offered you the $100,000 is an idiot. Obviously, the only reason they’d be paying you to run a positive review is if the car is terrible.So everyone else says it’s terrible (and explains exactly why, using facts and stuff), and your writer and editor have put their names to a review that says it’s great. This won’t attract any kind of suspicion. Nobody will be all over the car forums talking about it. No competing magazines will call you out on it. Nobody will remember this next time this editor and writer are looking for jobs. Or… that might be wrong.So no, this doesn’t tend to happen. Other things might happen. But not usually this.