978
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2026
978 points (99.5% liked)
Technology
86469 readers
4193 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
I know people here want to talk about flock, but does no one find it questionable a journalist got loaned a $150k vehicle to review? And then another alleged journalist according to the story got pulled over in a $105k Land Rover they were loaned to review? As a journalist, do they also receive homes and women to review? Sounds like some serious corruption right there.
How did you think product reviews happened?
By companies that buy reviews. Not journalism.
You think a free to read website is going out and buying $200,000 (and up) cars every day for a 2 week review?
Even at the height of automotive print journalism there wasn’t budget for that.
Ferrari is famous for cutting access to critical journalists. Most companies expect a blend of positive and negative reviews and lend cars to any credible outlet. American automotive media has typically been pretty bad about the PR regurgitation, but that’s a choice they’re making - hiring people to read the PR, not to write their own.
That definitely happens some of the time, in some places. Journalism still exists, however.
Product reviews require more than a 'test drive'.
Oh bless your heart.
Ah yes, we all thought 'Journalism' was a real thing, but alas, Capitalism/corruption has taken over all mainstream 'journalism', and 'truth' is who pays the most.. ..pretty sad..
If they are automotive journalists, which in this case they are, then yes this is completely normal. People get review copies of games / books / movies / phones. So why wouldn't they loan out cars?
That isn't journalism. That is corporate PR and marketing.
Read more product reviews from more varied publications. You will see that there is a range of accountability in the sourcing of the product. Not all of it is direct marketing.
However, you can expect all of it to be ideologically consumerist.
25 years ago I was a motoring journalist. I have had loaned to me: a Ferrari for two weeks, a Rolls Royce for three days, an Aston Martin for a month, and a Mercedes G series (not a G63) for three months. All of this and a whole bunch of other cars and motorcycles. I would be horrified if companies stopped lending out vehicles