For Ray Wert, too much is never enough.
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There's more than a few rabid readers of the site who'll be able to answer that question in a split second, so a better question is probably what in the world is Wert doing wherever he is? Although you may figure it out in the comments below, we'll neither confirm or deny any of the responses. But feel free to try and guess anyway. Although you may have to wait a few weeks to find out if you're right. For the meantime, rest assured that Wert will be burning the midnight (or whatever time it is there) oil to provide you clues on what he's doing as well as provide some interesting "Down On The ______ Street" action.

Ray Wert
Editor-in-Chief

Like other city boys, born and raised in South West of Detroit, Wert's been steeped in automotive culture since birth. His formative years were spent tooling around town in the comfort of a late malaise-era jet-black Northstar-powered Cadillac Sedan De Ville and the teeth-rattling ride of an R edition Mazda Miata. Since then Wert's owned more Jeeps than he can count on one hand (except for a brief two year interlude in a Dodge Intrepid R/T, but he doesn't like talking about that). A former senior staffer for Michigan Governor Granholm, Wert was an industry wonk who has since seen the light on that whole "politics" thing. An avid fan of classic 'merican muscle, Wert has since branched out a bit to embrace cars made by — well, you know — other automakers, but still spends much of his free time poking fun at German service center signs in Michigan watering holes. Wert's most treasured possession, other than a "Block M" license plate with the plate number of 0R0NS, is his very own one-of-a-kind bobblehead. In addition to serving as the Editor-in-Chief of Jalopnik, Wert also has written for The New York Times, PopularMechanics.com and is a regular contributor on CNBC. Wert splits his time between New York City and his beloved Metro Detroit.

Wes Siler
Road Test Editor
While not chastising Kanye West's bodyguard for his ill-advised political leanings or riding motorcycles, Wes Siler finds time to be Jalopnik's Road Test Editor. Wes first found his passion for cars while growing up in England. A subscription to Autocar soon turned into a string of vehicles, the first of which was a 1969 Morris Minor that broke down more times than Wes has fingers (nine). Slightly more reliable was the TVR Sagaris he used as a moving van in London a few years later. Wes has written for magazines ranging from Nylon to Msafari to 0-60, and he has just launched his own online motorcycle magazine, Hell For Leather.

John Krewson
Editor, Nights & Weekends
John has always enjoyed doing things the hard way, which is why he loves being an automotive enthusiast in the affordable and car-friendly city of Brooklyn on the exorbitant pay of a comedy writer. This is somewhat easier than being an F1 enthusiast in the lovely countryside of the great state of Wisconsin, where he was born and where he learned to drive fairly quickly on a variety of surfaces, including snow, ice, dirt, frozen dirt, whitetail deer, opossum, rabbit, squirrel, frozen whitetail deer, and even pavement. Although he comes from people who would rather push one brand of car than drive another, John does not in fact believe this to be a valid viewpoint. In his ample spare time from serving as the sports editor of The Onion, John Krewson will be covering nights and weekends for Jalopnik.

Matt Hardigree
Associate Editor - Chicago
Matt Hardigree is a twenty-something Texan doing a tour of duty in chilly Chicago. A wordsmith by trade, Matt has divided his time between writing about cars, romance, politics and the CMBS market (though he'd rather not talk about that). In addition to covering the latest news for Jalopnik, Matt focuses on the esoteric, the metaphysical and the hilarious side of the automotive universe.

Ben Wojdyla
Associate Editor - Detroit
Ben Wojdyla started out life as an Indiana farmboy and graduated with a mechanical engineering degree in 2004 from Kettering University. He's been passed around the automotive world like a two-dollar corporate whore, working in various facilities within Ford and Visteon, even doing time as a project consultant with a German engineering firm. More importantly, Ben drives a 1999 Audi A4 2.8L V6, a 1978 Kawasaki KZ750B3 and he's working on resurrecting a 1964 Lincoln Continental in his very own level of Project Car Hell. Ben covers the dark and weird little corners of the greasemonkey world for Jalopnik and monitors the Detroit beat. Ben lives in scenic Royal Oak, MI.

Travis Hudson
Associate Editor - Aftermarket and Technology

Travis Hudson is a recent graduate of Kansas State University. Travis spent two years of his life at Gizmodo, obsessed with all things consumer electronics (including beer bongs). Travis is a technology fiend who is beginning to dabble more into the world of automobiles and trying not to get hit by one while doing his dabbling. Travis will be covering all of the great gadgets and doodads that can be found on the road and many that can't. Travis drives a 2006 Civic Si and currently lives in Dallas, Texas, but is contemplating a move to New York City.





Murilee Martin
Contributor
Emerging from the swamps of the San Francisco Bay Area, the young Murilee Martin was tragically sidetracked from his destiny as a billionaire high-tech kingpin when a $113 GTO and the sound of Lemmy Kilmister's voice on the radio seduced him away from the Apple II and into a tawdry life of primered-out beaters, junkyards, and general hoonage. After a stunningly unsuccessful attempt to make a living as a performance/installation artist, Murilee went on to become a hack professional writer, creating everything from junkmail to bondage smut to mechanics' shop manuals. Murilee has owned and discarded dozens of heaps, clunkers, and Hell Projects, with a Competition Orange '68 Mercury Cyclone and a British Racing Green '73 MGB-GT being the hopeless cases he most regrets letting go.

Mark Arnold
Contributor
Mark Arnold is Jalopnik's video guy. A "seasoned pro" with over two years of production experience under his belt, Mark started working with Jalopnik at the Detroit Auto Show earlier this year and we decided we'd keep him because he's just too damn good. He suffers from the same lifelong obsession with cars as the rest of us, and started here as a commenter before making the jump to contributor. Mark has a philosophical belief that an automobile should die under its own power. He has killed 8 cars in the past 6 years by means of blown engine or total-loss collision. Mark babies his cars.

Mike Spinelli
Editor-at-Large
Mike Spinelli is the founding editor of Jalopnik. In addition to being the rock, island and spiritual leader of the team, Spinelli has published pieces in a variety of outlets including Wired, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Lane Daily, Garage 419, 0-60, Maxim Radio on Sirius and many others.

Thing is, it turns out the trendy payload was only skin-deep. We're thinking it was plywood, but you judge for yourself. All we know is — to hold aloft that prestigious award you don't need something as strong as steel girders. Nah, you only need it to look like it.

See, the Detroit Auto Show is different from most auto shows. If this show in particular were only about trying to sell cars to people in Metro Detroit, it'd be a non-event — just one in an endless string of regional auto show non-events like the Boston Auto Show and the DC Auto Show. Except, Metro Detroit's the homeplace of the mass-market automotive industry, and that means our show's a little bit different than most.

The Detroit Auto Show isn't about selling cars to the people who come to the public show. No — the Detroit Auto Show is really all about using the carnival-like atmosphere that comes from having thousands of the world's media all in one place as a captive audience to your advantage. In the political world we would call it "earned media." It was what we termed using an event or public moment to craft a message at a relatively "minor" cost — having the news outlets do the work for us. Contrast that with the tens or hundreds of millions of "paid media" it might take via pricey Madison Avenue (or Maple Avenue — depending on which advertising firm we're talking about) commercials and advertisements. Not only is it more cheap to use the "unearned media" route, it comes with an added advantage. Unlike a huge ad campaign, it's usually better able to create the all-important "buzz" necessary to really resonate with the buying public. In the end, the uninformed masses will buy what trusted sources tell them to buy — and often that's the product that's generating the "buzz."

So why is the "buzz" so important? Better question — why do I consider it to be one of the biggest issues we need to address coming out of the 2008 Detroit Auto Show — and why was I disappointed I didn't get to talk about it on the air Sunday morning? Well, it's because the PR teams at the automakers, whether US or otherwise, appear to have forgotten how they get it because they're too busy clinging to this silly little thing that used to work so well for them — their precious "embargoes."

Yup, this tired and old subject again. You see, it used to be that an automaker would make the Detroit show a "jump ball" to the media — the reveal would occur at the show and everyone would get it at once. The outlets all published monthly and everyone was on an equal footing at getting the "news" out first. The product "news" was one part of a full-spectrum of features, and not the a priori subject. Now that's no longer the case come auto show season. But maybe we should get back to that.

It seems to me an automaker should be looking to use the unending thirst for new product information to their advantage by killing embargoes altogether — especially in a buzz-hungry forum like the Detroit Auto Show. And embargoes, being nothing more than an attempt by the automakers to control the media — don't appear to be doing anything but causing harm to buzz-creation. If an embargo will always be broken early and without any coordination whatsoever, wouldn't we think the automakers would seek to get back to a system of control? It seems to me we need to go back to a system where every outlet — the buff mags, the dailies, TV and the internet — is operating with the jump ball again? Wouldn't that create more excitement? Wouldn't that create more buzz? It seems to work well for companies like Apple and their MacWorld — a one day event that all media pays attention to.

The problem with the current Detroit Auto Show is there's no longer any buzz. The journalists in attendance have already seen everything revealed. It's hard to get excited about products we've already seen in embargoed briefings or via leaks of embargoed information. In fact, the one reveal this year that held any excitement whatsoever — that had any self-generated buzz? Why, it was the Cadillac CTS Coupe concept. And how'd that happen? Well — GM didn't provide any embargo access whatsoever. And oh look, they also didn't have any leaks of the product either. Maybe GM and other automakers should remember that reveal next year when they're deciding their auto show strategy. They should probably also remember it's damn hard for a buff-mag to build buzz — but it's really easy for the internet to do it. In the meantime I'm going to go and hunt around to see if anyone's dropped anything into the forums early for the Chicago Auto Show.

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I don't want to spend too much time being self-referential, but here's what I should have said last night instead of "Whoa!" Oh, if only I'd been able to channel my inner Dan Aykroyd, then I'd have had both more wit and less — umm — eye gyrations. – Ray Wert

Big 3 Automakers And Labor: How Will Talks Play Out? [CNBC]; Saturday Night Live [NBC]

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