|
My own take on this is on one hand, the reviewer has, IMO, an obligation to be honest and forthright to his/her audience whether it be a review about a £20,000 car or a pair of hifi speakers costing £150.
Not working in the motoring media, it is impossible to know about how manufacturer/journalist/magazine relationships work (who is in who's pocket), and I'd also seriously question how much advertising revenue income (or cars for personal/family use) plays a key part in the decision by the journo (and his editor) not to give an adverse review.
I work in publishing, handle product reviews for small scale items. An example of the 'difficulty' is because a reviewer was critical of a DVD, the DVD producer withdrew all advertising. To me, this was his loss, he took his ball home and missed a target audience of 45-50,000 readers, but my loyalty is to the readers who will buy these products.
There was a major court case back in 1994 when the designers of a trimaran sued a well known magazine and won £1.5m in damages following a critical review of the boat, which the jury felt contained a number of inaccuracies. I worked for another part of the company at that time and recall missives were sent out about the need for fair, unbiased and accurate product reviews.
So I can understand the caution being used by magazine and website owners whose pockets may not be deep as VW's if push came to shove.
That said, the delay in finding a solution really begs the question whether VW has a solution, yet you can still configure a car today with that 1.5TSi engine, which I find as odd. Lots of questions (such as did this occur during testing), but not many answers.
Edited by Miniman777 on 18/08/2019 at 18:37
|
