Tv4 Discussion: Saab and the media
April 20, 2011 in Uncategorized
For all you people who understand swedish, I do suggest that you tune into Tv4′s morning program.
There is supposed to be be a discussion about how the media have treated Saab.
Should be very intereseting to watch.
Unfortunately I will not be able to see it, because at that time I’ll be half way to the Turkish city of Antalya, so if anyone finds a link to the discussion online, please post it in the comments 
enginagansaab said on April 20, 2011
Have fun in Turkey but Turkey is very poor country for SAABs, people have no idea what a SAAB car is, there are only few guys know about the brand and that makes me sad, I m from Turkey and my uncle had a 9000cse turbo after that day Im in love with saab with whole family members. there is no posting news about SAAB’s recent situation in Turkey, just 7 new 9-5s landed to Turkey and waiting to be sold I live in states and I cant get any news about saabs, by the way enjoy the sun in antalya its very nice place for a great vacation always sunny and charm people will be hosting u peace
Petteri said on April 20, 2011
I’ve visited Istanbul a couple of times recently and yes, Saab is a rare sight. But I’ve always seen one or two of them. In May 2010 I was there for a week and the only Saab I saw during my visit happened to be a beautiful yellow OG900 cabriolet. Another trip later that year and I saw two 9-3 SS. One of them was TiD, the other one I only saw from a distance and couldn’t check the badges.
montahue said on April 20, 2011
url missing. missing url is always frustrating
turbin said on April 20, 2011
No url because it will be “offline” on Swedish TV! TIMR has however asked if anybody does find a link in the “online” world can they please share it.
till72 said on April 20, 2011
the missing link…
TimR said on April 20, 2011
It should be broadcasted sometime between 0600-1000 CET, it should be online as well in a few hours at http://www.nyhetskanalen.se
BearValleyThn said on April 20, 2011
It’s not a discussion. It seems to be a short thing in the local news Tv4 Väst (West):
http://www.tv4play.se/nyheter_och_debatt/nyheterna_vast?title=enkelsparig_bevakning_av_saab&videoid=1605312
Rune said on April 20, 2011
The gist of this segment seems to be “it is ok to criticize Saab because our tax money is on the line” and “one has to ask, is this the best way to spend our tax money” said by a media analyst who himself says he has not followed Saab’s saga very closely.
Odd. Just odd. If the TV4 journalist is reading this: Next time, check just how your tax money is involved before going off on a tangent. Best of luck to you.
WD78 said on April 20, 2011
This did nothing new in the debate on the management of SAAB in the media.
My opinion is that the objectivity of SAAB in the media has been very poor, with many rumors in articles and pure speculations without real facts as background.
SAAB evoke emotions, thus making it more fire in the debate and the media trying to dig up as much news as possible .. even if it is facts or not.
Yerrun said on April 20, 2011
Poor Poor Swedish Media… Interviewing an “expert” and the first thing he says before giving his opinion is that he actually doesn’t know anything about the Saab case. I am starting to wonder if there are any journalists with a proper education who do a background check, factual descriptions, rather than sensation articles.
matsthn said on April 20, 2011
Since this whole Saab affair started in 2009 my view of our swedish journalists has gone down so badly, they’re now way below our politicians on my ranking.
Very few seems to know what they talk about or care to check the beckground facts. They all live in “Shiney-happy-green-people-village” where they eat unicorns and fart rainbows…
They dont understand that Sweden lives on the physical products it produces and their rants and rumourspreading isn’t contributing to our GNP but rather lowers it !
turbokalle said on April 20, 2011
+1. I feel the exact same way. Nowadays my approach to what media reports is extremely sceptical. In fact, I assume nothing is exactly true.
Sure, I`ts not medias fault that things are shakey for Saab right now. Nor is it medias job to help Saab with unobjectively positive reporting, but it sure as hell is`nt their job to spread rumours and backstabbing Saab. Of course they want to sell papers and get viewers, but there must be some kind of moral involved.
Camasi said on April 20, 2011
+1 I also agree with this. There are a few good journalists out there but most of them I just don’t trust any more. They have their own agenda.
Niklas G said on April 20, 2011
+1
Everything isn’t crap, but there is a lot of speculations based on lies out there.
In this case, not much point in interviewing an expert who basically says “I haven’t followed your coverage of Saab, but based on what I have studied for other companies, blah blah bla…”. Just ingnore and read real news on SU instead. =)
RS said on April 20, 2011
+10. A balanced trade of goods and services is the best (only) way to increase welfare of a nation. If they want to be really green, why don’t suggest going back to the stone age where all industrial production of any kind is forbidden. Get your rabbit traps ready.
“- Fart rainbows”. Statement of the years LOL!
Grumpy said on April 20, 2011
Totally agree with you Mats. Consider then that this is the ‘only’ case where we see how badly facts are reported, how innuendo and outright lies are used to drive home rethoric ‘wins’ over a single company.
Next multiply this knowledge with all the other stories written by the same journalists and you want to go live on a mountaintop.
It is a wonder they even report the fotball scores correctly.
WooDz said on April 20, 2011
Love it… So it’s ok to speculate and criticise which creates doubt and uncertainty over the brand, that turns potential customers away. That’s a really intelligent way of making sure the tax payer money doesn’t go to waste.
So the media think that spreading anti-Saab propaganda for the 12 months has’t had any adverse effect on the brand at all? Are these people stupid or what?
I refuse to believe that the media do not realise the power that they have, that they are just merely reporting. The media know full well what they are doing, what we have to work out is why are they doing it. Looking out for the the people is a load of rubbish, since when has the media cared about the people? Is the Swedish government behind it? Let’s face if SAAB go bankrupt, they end up with with a nice factory to build wind turbines in.
Now there’s a nice bit of conspiracy for you to chew on this morning.
WooDz said on April 20, 2011
Just quick one,
Does every comment from every user require moderation these days?
Rune said on April 20, 2011
Very few require approval, but posting an URL makes the watchdog suspicious I think. I am not familiar with its implementation, but hopefully it learns to trust someone after a few posts. (I could have just replied ‘no’ since I do not really know anything more than that
)
Paddan said on April 20, 2011
My late father used to say that the media can make a story a self fulfilling prophesy because if it said the same thing over and over, people eventually begin to believe it, even if it isn’t true.
mike saunders said on April 20, 2011
As someone involved in the media for years, I’m always genuinely curious about the differences in media from country to country.
Can any of our Swedish friends document these “media lies” and “propaganda”? Which articles or TV reports that aren’t opinion pieces actually contain “speculation based on lies”?
bramfoto said on April 20, 2011
It is not the media’s job to be a cheerleader for a company, even if it is a national treasure.
Coming from San Francisco, where our tradition is to be skeptical of all public statements,whether from Politicians, Media, Teachers or friends, I chuckle about what people expect from the media.
VM and SAAB have handled this poorly. And have put the swedish government in the position for the second time in a year to face the difficult choice of throwing more tax money at something that may or may not fly.
I think the media should bring up whether tax money should be spent for this purpose. Or whether they should put more risk into the pot by freeing up SAAB Collatoral in case SAAB goes bankrupt.
San Francisco was one of the only cities in the US to turn down a public financed sport facility. The voters voted it down 4 times. As people said, we don’t want to subsidize billionaires.
SAAB is selling a product where a consumer has choices. The media isn’t hurting SAAB’s image, but VM is by having this drag out as long as it has. He made his money in investment banking. So he isn’t naive.
He might have decided that he could not do it alone and needed big money, including his Russian friend VA. The only way to get it was to force the Swedish government’s hand by letting this crisis happen.
Everyone knows that government’s only move in a crisis.
Where is VM? He should be out every day talking about this.
Again, I hope they survive, but you have to question what VM has in mind?
Rune said on April 20, 2011
Of course not.
But is it OK to report rumors as facts in order to bury a company?
mike saunders said on April 20, 2011
Curious about this: which rumors were reported as facts?
And do you really think someone in the media is trying to bury Saab?
Rune said on April 20, 2011
I’ll have to google a little later when I have the time, but one example is the interview on Agenda (Swedish TV), where the reporter asked Victor if he wasn’t worried about conducting business with someone of Antonov’s reputation. This question only seconds after presenting news on the report that cleared Antonov’s name… Rather than worry about facts and fact checking, they immediately returned to the good ol’ rumormill.
Personally I do not believe “they” are trying to bury Saab. I think they are trying to sell newspapers, and good news don’t sell. Fact checking takes time. Time is money. Print what you’ve got.
Rune said on April 20, 2011
mike,
http://www.e24.se/business/ovrig-industri/hon-domer-ut-saabs-chanser_2757331.e24
Here is yet another example of reporting the “fact” that Saab have 20 years history of loss-making.
They interview an “expert” who doesn’t realize that the previously reported “facts” are not accurate. This expert then procedes predicting doom and gloom, while neglecting all the cutbacks Saab have gone through as well as the new product development that has taken place recently.
Saab is a very different company now than five years ago. It is essentially a startup company with an impressive product portfolio and an established distribution net.
(FYI; Saab showed a profit as late as 2007. It is difficult to say much about the years before that as GM had a tendency to push expenses such as the development of a european Cadillac on to Saab, while taking the profit from sales of Saabs in the US directly into GM USA)
mike saunders said on April 20, 2011
So, you believe that the expert quoted in the story was apparently wrong, and you’ve ascribed that error to the media as a whole. That’s understandable.
But this 2007 profit of which you speak…could you be wrong? Could Saab have just cut its losses?
hmmmm…as far as I can tell, the only Saab that turned a profit in 2007 was Saab AB, which sold off the car company years ago.
Are you sure of the facts that you’ve just published?
Rune said on April 20, 2011
mike, there doesn’t go nearly a day without some media outlet saying that Saab didn’t make a profit for 20 years. I just picked the first result from google.
As for my sources, there is the letter from the unions published by DI two years ago. Jan-Åke made similar statements around then. And finally Lars Carlström I believe it was, again brought it up a year later.
From the very article you cite: “Saab CEO Jan-Ake Jonsson said the group earned money on its sales in Europe but not in the U.S.”.
What does that tell you? (my previous comment already told you what the company’s representatives said about this)
Khrisdk said on April 20, 2011
As long as we are talking large international companies like GM , we can never be sure where the profit was.
The most profit is always made where the taxes are lowest.
(which is also a rumor, but just as plausible as alle the other rumors)
mike saunders said on April 21, 2011
Khrisdk, you make a good point about multinational companies hiding profits on balance sheets to shield them from taxes, but surely a company as large as GM would easily be able to find other ways doing it. General Electric recorded profits, yet paid little or no taxes for years.
AFAIK, the last profitable year was 1995, but I would love to see something official that refutes that.
Rune, I’ve heard the story of balance sheet shenanigans before involving the Euro Cadillac, but I’ve never seen it verified with an on-the-record comment from anyone at Saab.
Rune said on April 21, 2011
mike, it is easy enough to find references to that event.
http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/fordon_motor/bilar/article761785.ece
This story has been mentioned a few times. It is of course possibly false, in which case one of the investigative journalists should have torn it apart. But that is kind of my point: There are no real journalists left. Instead they repeat rumours rather than spend time checking facts and hunting for the truth. The bad rumours are brought to the front page, but the positive stories are buried in the corner at page 24. And none of them are verified for accuracy.
Saab’s situation has dramatically changed since 2007. It is no longer relevant information that they turned a profit in 2007 — with a much different product portfolio and reduced head count it is a completely different operation with different challenges both good and bad.
The Swedish press, last year, could have celebrated the fact that the Saab 9-5 is the safest and best looking car obtainable for money (well, I am stretching the truth a bit here, because we won’t know for a few years if they really improved on the old design, but hopefully they have done what they promised. The old 9-5 ranks at the top in Folksam’s report from 2009: http://www.folksam.se/polopoly_fs/1.11226!/webbversioneng_R6546.pdf). It gets pretty good reviews, but with all the doom and gloom some people are reluctant to buy (for reasons the journalists have not bothered spelling out — what would happen here in Sweden if Saab the car manufacturer called it a day? Parts and service would still, for the larger part, be available, so where is the problem exactly? Again, no journalists have attempted to answer this rather important question)
RS said on April 21, 2011
I must agree with Rune. I believe there actually are a lot of those in Sweden that wish Saab would simply go away. We’re like the little persistent (but friendly) terrier that annoys the heck out of some bigger lazier dogs
About the safety factor, I have no doubt the new 9-5 is one of the most -if not the- safest car in the world due to its weight. When they’ve smashed two 9-5′s we have to remember it’s a head on collision of two heavy weights. I’d hate to see what it would do to 5 star 1400 kg Alfa Giulietta or even an OG 9-5.
The increased width of the car is also a big plus is my book. The more metal there is to absorb the impact the better.
This brings up the question why in the world doesn’t Saab advertise the very reasons we buy these cars in the first place? If Saab will ever fail in the future it will because of LOUSY marketing in 95% of the markets…
It got to be gutsy like Hyundai Genesis a few years ago, or the German trio. This attitude brings in customers. How about some SAAB pride? It’s to enough to just put a picture in a car magazine and say “-Here it is”. Everyone (in Europe) knows the 9-5 is out, now they need reasons why they should consider one.
Saab attends all kind of Auto Shows but never bring up the UPS’s to the general public. I can not understand why?
I really hope the Swade effect will finally change this! Mr. Wade are you listening?
bramfoto said on April 20, 2011
I doubt they are purposely trying to bury the company.
Rumors could be true later.
If you follow the Apple Rumor mill, it is non stop. Sometimes wrong, but generally accurate.
Rumors would stop people from buying SAABs.
But the fact that the factory is closed might stop them.
VM should of thought about it when this happened.
Bottom Line, Don’t Shoot the Messenger!!
If you don’t want rumors, get out in front of story. Maybe VM is not up to being the head of a Public Company that needs the Swedish government?
Khrisdk said on April 20, 2011
If the messenger brings false information I will.
If you believe that Swedish ax money are at stake here you hav eben listening to one of those.
The Collateral taken for the EIB loans grossly exceeds the value of the loans.
And the freeing up of collateral is followed by a reduced possibility of EIB loans.
There are not many known facts.
Everybody is doing more or less qualified guessing.
It doesn´t matter if rumors are sometimes true. They are still rumors, not facts.
I could start another rumor from the same known facts with a much more positive angle
saabluster said on April 20, 2011
“VM and SAAB have handled this poorly. And have put the swedish government in the position for the second time in a year to face the difficult choice of throwing more tax money at something that may or may not fly.
I think the media should bring up whether tax money should be spent for this purpose. Or whether they should put more risk into the pot by freeing up SAAB Collatoral in case SAAB goes bankrupt.”
Yes they should bring this up if it is true. Can you show any proof that any Swedish tax dollars are on the line though?
Bill H said on April 20, 2011
Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation. – G.B Shaw
bramfoto said on April 20, 2011
Well Mr. Shaw was reading English papers, so I could understand that.
We say here, IF IT BLEADS, IT LEADS!!
I wonder what Mr. Shaw would think of the internet?
WM said on April 20, 2011
Mr Shaw should try reading the SF Chronicle sometime; then he’d be the one bleeding (from embarrasment). If it bleeds it leads should only be taken so far!
mike saunders said on April 20, 2011
A great quotation, to be sure, but Shaw’s vision of newspapers was dominated by seedy Fleet Street rags that would make the Sun look like the London Times.
Not quite applicable here.
peeceepeh said on April 20, 2011
I was unable to follow all the post here on SU lately.
Has SAAB started production again at full? Is everything back to normality by now? Has there been a post on that? If yes, it somehow should show up and stay on the front page, because people that hear about the production halt may check the internet about this and should get accurate immediate information here at SU.