Ford Media Watch Thread

[King Nothing]

Many here know and agree with the influence modern media has on the world. This can have real and devastating consequences on people's lives. Whilst the media's influence is never the only factor in change, it often acts as a catalyst bringing about an event that may have been avoided given more time.

The perfect case in point was the closure of Mitsubishi's manufacturing here in Australia. Many can argue that it was purely that Mitsu built a car that nobody wanted. Whilst this was true to an extent, none can deny the massively negative influence that the media had on sales of the 380. Some people did not buy the car due to fears of buying an "orphan" car.

Now that Mitsu is gone, the sights have been set on Ford Australia. In recent times, I have seen articles making statements such as "another nail in the coffin of the falcon", "Ford lifts it's 40 year old engine off of the scrap heap", and the like. The most notable of these articles recently is Paul Pottingers "Good Money after Bad", published on the carsguide website (see the falcon to continue I6 thread, around page 7-8). This article was a purely opinionated based piece of "journalism". No facts were offered, and what little knowledge the author did have of the subject was twisted to present a negative view.

My responses, along with others, are posted in the thread mentioned above. When presented with professional, factual responses that were not opinion based, the author did not respond. Eventually the article was re-submitted under a different web address with all comments removed. To date there have been many comments sent to this new article, none of which have been published.

The above point proves that, when we combine together and use intelligent, factual responses, that we can have an effect. True, it was not a large one, but obviously our responses were so well thought out, that the author had no choice but to save face by removing the comments. This would have cost carsguide time and money, as nothing is for free. Paul, along with any technical IT staff, have had to take the time to resubmit. Carsguide would be paying $$ for this.

I do not want to see the falcon go the way of the 380. I do not want to see ford Aus manufacturing in this country follow mitsubishi. If we do not make a stand, they will move on to holden. Many of us here are not holden fans, but would rather drive a commodore, or a camry?

We have already proven that together we can make a difference. My proposal is that we use this thread as a type of "media watch" source. Articles which show an obvious bias, using incorrect assumptions and twisting of information, can be posted here and intelligent responses thought out and posted. We can also use this as a technical resource, to store information such as fuel consumption figures, engine/driveline specifications, sales figures etc. Provided that they have a reference behind them as support.

We may not succeed. The falcon's future may already be sealed. But I'll be damned if I let the media in this country run Ford Aus into the ground the same way they did to mitsu. I will make it my goal to make it as difficult as possible for these mongrels to write anything that is not grounded in reality. Let's make it hard for them.

I would appreciate if any articles people find could be posted in here.

To start the ball rolling, the infamous Paul Pottinger
http://carsguide.news.com.au/site/be..._after_bad_pp/

Another carsguide piece of brilliance
http://carsguide.news.com.au/site/mo...ne_plant_open/

Is there a website that presents the car sales figures for Aus? That would be very handy to have. Otherwise we can just put in links to the other V-facts threads here.

One ok website for quick specification checks (power, fuel consumption), is http://www.redbook.com.au/

I'm at the point of writing a written letter to carsguide. Written word is always much better than online, plus you are not limited to 1200 characters! It's very difficult to make a well written piece in such a short space.