Angry Dealers Pull TV Ads   

A running dispute with local auto dealers has left a stain of intimidation on a now cowering Minneapolis/St. Paul media community. The controversy has resulted in spiked stories, neutered reporters and frightened management.

Twin Cities auto dealers have always been sensitive to what they perceive as negative coverage, but in 1988 they began canceling ad contracts with WCCO-TV, a CBS affiliate with a reputation for tough but fair consumer reporting. The station's investigative team had reported that Ford vans caught fire after accidents because of design flaws. And consumer reporter Silvia Gambardella had done two pieces that rankled dealers. She followed an unhappy Ford customer through an encounter with the state's lemon law, and she told listeners how to save money when negotiating for a new car.

The station offered to set up regular meetings between local dealer groups and newsroom management to improve communication, but the parley collapsed when the station aired two other tough pieces by Gambardella ? on purchasing used cars from rental agencies and on Chevy Lumina seatbelts that shredded in crashes.

WCCO General Manager Bob McGann didn't renew the popular reporter's contract last fall but ended up rehiring her after a newsroom protest. Gambardella continues to cover auto-related stories, and the station is recovering from the advertising drought brought on by the dearth of auto ads and the recession.

One prime beneficiary of the auto dealers' displeasure with WCCO was WCCO's Gannett-owned competitor, NBC affiliate KARE-TV. The station snared a bigger share of dealer ads in 1989 and 1990, which may help explain why it killed a story about local dealers in April. KARE reporter Bernie Grace had uncovered a rash of car thefts from local dealers, but station management refused to air the exclusive. Sources at KARE say the station was concerned about antagonizing dealers, although the thefts were documented in police records, and several dealers had helped Grace with his story.

Officials at WCCO and KARE deny that advertising concerns were behind the abortive dismissal of Gambardella and Grace's spiked exclusive. And local auto dealer groups deny that a drop in advertising resulted from an organized boycott. "There was never an advertiser boycott, that would be illegal," says Bill Abraham, executive vice president of the Twin Cities Auto Dealers Association. "If persons lose their job, it's only because of their job performance." But former WCCO General Manager Ron Handberg says that dealers clearly threatened to withhold advertising.

Today the Minneapolis/St. Paul media devote little space to auto or consumer issues, save for Gambardella's reports and the Minneapolis Star Tribune 's invariably ecstatic (except for the Yugo) "reviews" fronting the Saturday classified sections. To its credit, the paper did cover the April car thefts story. Its main competitor, Knight-Ridder's St. Paul Pioneer Press , devotes even less space to auto coverage and held a series of meetings with auto dealers to cool off tempers piqued by its staff-written feature story on how to save money buying a new car.