The writer, a Los Angeles freelancer and former Detroit News business reporter, writes a blog, Starkman Approved.
By Eric Starkman
Given its dramatic decline from one of America’s premier local newspapers to the diminished publication it’s become, one might expect the Gannett-owned Detroit Free Press to be working overtime to justify the value of its journalism — both to readers and to advertisers whose support it needs to stay alive.
Sadly, many of Gannett’s top editors have never been distinguished for their wisdom. The Freep’s recent ode to General Motors’ efforts to bypass traditional media in favor of paying social media “influencers” to promote its vehicles is a case study in Gannett’s questionable corporate leadership. Given that Gannett owns more than 100 publications nationwide, including USA Today, one might expect the media company would champion the value of professional journalism rather than applaud those who undermine it.
Last week, the Free Press ran a feature by GM beat reporter Jackie Charniga about how the automaker has diverted marketing dollars to buy off vacuous content creators and get passing mentions of GM products. Charniga acknowledges there is no evidence that GM’s social media efforts result in any sales, nor does she mention that GM’s marketing and messaging are now run out of San Francisco by people with no experience working in the automotive industry.
Lin-Hua Wu/GM photo
Lin-Hua Wu, who is based in San Francisco and is responsible for GM’s corporate communications, previously worked at Google — which ranks high among the last companies I’d look to for reputation management. Wu was just promoted to chief marketing officer as well, despite lacking any experience in consumer goods, replacing an industry marketing veteran who is respected by his peers but seemingly faltered working at GM.
That’s an all too familiar fate of accomplished executives who join GM under the leadership of CEO Mary Barra.
To be clear, I don’t fault Charniga, a prolific reporter formerly of Automotive News who produces an impressive volume of well-researched copy — including her story about GM’s social media outreach. The failure lies with her editors, who had the luxury of comfortably sitting at their desks to analyze and reflect on her findings but couldn’t see the forest for the trees. With little effort, an experienced editor could have transformed Charniga’s piece into an award-worthy GM takedown.
GM’s California Social Media Guru
Jessica Wang/LinkedIn photo
Charniga introduces readers to Jessica Wang, GM’s senior content administrator, who oversees the automaker’s influencer programming. Wang’s Harvard undergraduate degree is in biochemistry, not communications, and she too is based in San Francisco. Charniga omits Wang’s location — significant given GM’s claim to be a Detroit-based company.
GM’s news site featuring promotional insights about the company is also run out of the Bay area, overseen by a former Barron’s reporter who specialized in technology. It’s a reflection of Barra’s misguided conceit that GM is no longer an automotive company but rather a cutting-edge tech outfit.
When Barra opened GM’s Silicon Valley campus last year — where four of the company’s top executives are located — she said the automaker “had to go where the talent is.” With Barra firing Detroit-area salaried workers by the thousands in recent years, it speaks volumes about her disrespect for the capabilities of Michigan workers, despite GM having received billions in taxpayer donations to support the automaker's manufacturing operations in the state.
Apparently, GM can’t find a qualified person who lives or is willing to relocate to Michigan to handle even its social media outreach.
Truckin’ in a Loaner Tahoe
GM branding
Charniga spotlights Maddison Lynn Collinge, a Detroit native now living in Los Angeles who has 550,000 TikTok followers. In her Free Press–featured video, Collinge beams, “Coffee & shopping in the desert in the @chevrolet Tahoe of course. Chevy brought us to the desert this weekend for Stagecoach, and I couldn’t be more grateful.”
Charniga shares that GM loaned Collinge her Tahoe and paid for her tickets to the three-day country music festival held outside Palm Springs — a standard industry quid pro quo. A three-day pass to the Stagecoach festival can run more than $1,000; Charniga doesn’t disclose for how long Collinge enjoyed free use of her Tahoe.
Charniga also doesn’t disclose demographics on Collinge’s followers and whether they can even afford a $60,000 Tahoe. Most Americans, particularly Gen Z, lack the financial means to buy a new vehicle.
To her credit, Charniga at least acknowledges GM’s endgame is to bypass traditional reporters.
“There’s no gatekeeping on social media. That’s the whole point,” says Josh Pasek, a University of Michigan professor of Communication and Media and Political Science. “You no longer need a professional journalist class because anyone can publish.”
Exactly — and that’s the problem. GM pays for selfies instead of substance — and the Free Press plays along.
“Upper Funnel Tool”
Nowhere does Charniga present evidence that GM has any proof its influencer carnival outreach sells vehicles or even improves brand perception.
"With automotive, influencers are still being used as an upper funnel sort of tool where it’s more about brand awareness,” Ad Age reporter E.J. Schultz admits in the story. “It would be rare cases where an influencer post is directly leading to a sale.”
An “upper-funnel tool” is marketing jargon intended to give authoritative validation for a practice where there’s no qualitative or quantitative evidence that it works.
According to Deloitte Digital — whose data Charniga cites but doesn’t appreciate — corporations now devote about 24% of their social-media budgets to influencers, with global spending expected to hit $32.6 billion by the end of 2025. That’s roughly the size of the entire global automotive advertising market — a staggering sum that once supported journalism.
Elon Musk’s Marketing View
Contrast GM’s social media marketing with Tesla, which is valued at $1.4 trillion, despite Elon Musk refusing to invest in advertising — and having eliminated the company’s PR department years ago. Musk generates global buzz through engineering breakthroughs, audacious risk-taking, and the gravitational pull of his own eccentric genius.
Then there’s Toyota, ranked this year as America’s fourth most respected company, compared to GM’s No. 44 ranking. The Japan-based company has never been known for groundbreaking advertising, and its savvy PR people blew off the New York Times two years ago for the publication’s story about how Toyota’s reputation was supposedly hurting because of its slower and more strategic approach to electric vehicles.
Toyota is having a banner year selling hybrids — a strategy that Ford and Stellantis have followed. Meanwhile, in 2019, Barra canceled GM’s pioneering plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt — a vehicle that, unlike GM’s subsequent electric models, was never subject to major safety recalls or crippling mechanical issues.
Toyota’s best advertising comes from Consumer Reports, which hails the company’s vehicles as the most reliable. The publication enjoys its authority precisely because it doesn’t accept advertising — and companies can’t buy influence with free tickets to concerts.
Ford branding
Then there’s Ford, whose top marketing and PR executives are based in Dearborn and have decades of automotive experience in their fields. I’m in awe of Ford’s Isaac TeSlaa promotion; the company comped the Detroit Lions rookie wide receiver an electric Ford Lightning pickup and he agreed to pose in front of his vehicle wearing a t-shirt emblazoned “TeSlaa Drives A Ford.”
Brilliant marketing — when TeSlaa takes the field I immediately imagine a Ford Lightning.
Ford also understands how to partner with real influencers. The company teamed up with actress Sydney Sweeney — who has more than 25 million Instagram followers and is a genuine car enthusiast known for restoring her own vintage Ford Bronco — on a series of social media campaigns that highlight both her automotive passion and appreciation of Ford’s brand heritage. It’s an example of influencer marketing done right: authentic, aspirational, and grounded in credibility rather than free concert tickets and borrowed SUVs.
Notably, the origins of the TeSlaa promotion came from a researcher for Ford’s Model E team who works in Michigan Central Station, which Ford spent more than $500 million renovating. Ford also is spending billions, without taxpayer support, to build a new headquarters campus in Dearborn to better integrate all its divisions.
By contrast, Barra claims the four floors GM occupies in Dan Gilbert’s heavily taxpayer-subsidized Hudson’s Detroit tower serve as the company’s headquarters — despite moving more than 4,000 jobs outside the city. It’s another example of the false claims the media lets Barra get away with. Barra wants taxpayers to contribute $250 million to save the RenCen, or she says GM will tear it down.
“Show Me” Journalism
There’s hope that the media’s lovefest with Barra might end — at least at the Detroit News.
Summer Ballentine, the publication’s rookie auto writer who joined about three months ago after covering Missouri politics for a decade, recently reported on an investor/media presentation Barra gave in New York alongside two of her top San Francisco–based lieutenants, who waxed on about all the tech initiatives GM has in store.
Rather than dutifully serve as Barra’s stenographer, Ballentine reached out to some industry automotive experts who weren’t dazzled by Barra’s shuck and jive.
“They’ve made a lot of interesting announcements. But that’s all they are right now — announcements,” says industry consultant Sam Abuelsamid.
Perhaps a decade reporting in the “Show Me” state taught Ballentine a skepticism once common among U.S. journalists — particularly seasoned auto writers. If that’s the case, here’s to the News hiring legions more reporters from Missouri, and to Michigan readers and corporations supporting the publication with the subscriptions and advertising Ballentine’s kind of reporting deserves.
When I ran my successful New York–based PR firm, I always advised clients that any content that could be purchased wasn’t worth paying for. Any success GM achieves selling its gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs will be despite its questionable marketing and social media outreach, not because of it.
