Why the Next Big Auto Story Won’t Start on Social Media with Jamie Butters

Paul J Daly: 0:00 You know, one of the things that I don't think we give enough credit to Unknown: 0:08 this is auto Collabs as an Paul J Daly: 0:11 industry, and us at more than cars, but also as an industry, is that you need actual journalists and actual people with actual relationships to generate the news that we all talk about, right? We kind of the easy job, and we generate some of it from the start. But there's a whole there's a whole team. Team is too small a word, right? There is a cadre. There is a battalion of automotive industry journalists that are constantly out there talking to manufacturers, suppliers, dealers, tech companies, to actually bring the news to the surface. And today's guest, Jamie butters has had had a big hand in that, and will continue now that he's moving on to Wall Street Journal, yeah, Kyle Mountsier: 0:56 I'm excited that it won, that he's moving on to Wall Street Journal, I think that that's going to be a key play for, like, retail, automotive, to get a different perspective into a broader publication. But I love what you're saying there, and I hope, hope you can get into this conversation with him. But it's it. It's really interesting to me that in this world of AI, like, AI still needs source material, right? Like we still need to provide source material to everything else that we're talking about, and there still will have to be people that are on the ground thinking about the source material of any industry, any human connection, any conversation. And I think Jamie butters is great at digging up source material. Michael Cirillo: 1:39 Why don't we dig in. I gotta say, I have to imagine the journalists are surrounded by cork board and like lines of yarn, because they're like cigarettes and like tweed jackets with elbow patches. Anyways, off on a tangent. Hey guys. I hope you enjoy this episode with Jamie Thaddeus, Bartholomew butters, Collabs. Paul J Daly: 2:09 Jamie butter is my friend. It is good to have you. I believe the first time you've ever been on this show. Jamie Butters: 2:14 Welcome. Hey, Paul. Well, we've recorded some we were at at name ad, yeah, I joined you. So unless this is a separate show, I'm not Paul J Daly: 2:24 even sure what show it is. It's the same team we have. We have some shows, but either way, big transition going on. And from you moving from automotive news in the Wall Street Journal, and like you have this interesting perspective on the industry, and I think you also have a very unique place in the industry. As the editor for auto news for so long, I think people just associate you with the center point of what's going on in the industry. And so I think, like, because there's a change being made, I think, like, it's different than it's different than anybody else you know, so I'm excited about it. I'm a long time Wall Street Journal reader. So I always joke with when we go into the airport and stuff and there's, like, a Wall Street Journal store, I always tell everyone I'm gonna walk in and show everyone that I'm a subscriber. And so tell us a little bit about your journey in automotive, though, because, like, your time with automotive news, wasn't it? You were covering automotive a long time, for a long time, and you bring a lot of that experience forward, and you kind of have some vision for have some vision for the next stage of your career. So I'd love to just unpack Jamie Butters: 3:26 that a little bit, sure. Yeah. I mean, you're right. I've been doing this a long Paul J Daly: 3:29 time. Wasn't an old joke, I promise, yeah. But Jamie Butters: 3:33 no, you know, it's been really interesting, because I started covering autos in the late 90s. You know, when I was when my wife and I both worked at the Lexington Herald Leader down in central Kentucky. Toyota had a plant nearby, and I covered a job, one, you know, for the Sienna minivan rolling off the line there, and Toyota ended up, long story short, I ended up going my first auto show ended up being Tokyo in 1997 Paul J Daly: 4:00 first one was Tokyo, yeah, before Jamie Butters: 4:02 I ever went to an auto show, talk Paul J Daly: 4:04 about going deep end, right out of the gates. Jamie Butters: 4:07 Yo, learning the industry from Toyota was a really different perspective, and which especially drove home when I moved to Detroit and people had a little different point of view growing up, you know, around a really unionized auto industry. But I learned about the industry, you know, really from Toyota and its manufacturing processes. And also that Tokyo 97 show was when Toyota and Honda first came out with hybrids, and this was the beginning of election 97 Yeah, the Prius and the Honda Insight and so, and even at the time and what I came back, and my main, you know, project that I wrote about from the trip was, you know, that this was a new kind of vehicle, a new kind of power train. And Toyota saw it, you know, this gas and electric combination with the little animation on the screen to show you where your power is coming. From and how regeneration, you know, recharges the batteries. You know that this was a stepping stone to electric vehicles, which, you know, we'd hardly had any, I mean, the EV one, and then they saw that as a stepping stone to hydrogen fuel cell. And here I am, you know, almost 30 years later, yeah, you know, Toyota is more than 50% hybrids, at least in the US. US market is 8% electric, you know, one out of 12. That's not as much as some people were talking about just a few years ago, but not even it's a big difference from, you know, 20 years ago or 10 years ago. So, you know, it's more than a million vehicles a year, and that's an interesting growth curve, but these changes take a long time, is one of the things I've apparently Paul J Daly: 5:48 and apparently you can't legislate your way as fast as you would like. Jamie Butters: 5:52 No, not if you're going to let the companies survive as as independent, you know, capitalist entities, because it's just too hard to make money on those vehicles, you know, without a lot of a lot of support at this point. But yeah, so I was at the Herald Leader until 2000 the day after the bush Gore election. We moved to Detroit. I was at the Detroit Free Press for eight years, basically the whole George W Bush years. I did take a little time off to go to the University of Michigan on a knight Wallace Fellowship, which was fun. I got to go to Argentina and Istanbul, really places I'd never been before. I'd been a little to Asia and a little to Europe. I'd never been to South America. I'd never been to the Middle East. So that was really fascinating. That's when I started editing. I came in as a reporter, and then after, after the fellowship, you know, we got, right before I went on the fellowship, the newspaper got sold to Gannett, and I came back, and basically everybody from my direct boss through the chairman of the board was different. So I had to find my way at a new place that I had been working for five years, six years, and became the auto editor and auto as a business editor. And then right around when the economy started falling apart, I went to Bloomberg and ran the auto team there through the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler and being, you know, covering that for a financial focused news organization, you know, was really intense. Yeah, you know, it had seemed, it's hard to even remember at this point, but you know, it had seemed unthinkable that General Motors could go bankrupt, even though their finances were so bad, it was just like they were too big, it would be too chaotic. And then they started talking about, there's maybe this little, little used clause in the bankruptcy, and we could just sort of pull out the assets and put them into a new CO and and so the section 363, became the gospel, and the government, you know, managed those bankruptcies and kept the auto industry moving really fascinating times. Then you know the competitive difference between GM and Ford, because Ford didn't go through the bankruptcy and get their balance sheet cleaned up like that was was really fascinating. And then in 2018 I went to automotive news and really got to learn more about the retail end of the business. Obviously, automotive news doesn't just cover dealers. Covers the whole industry, but it was something that I didn't have as much exposure to working for general interest newspapers or the financial news wires. So that was really educational for me. And now next month, I'll go to the Wall Street Journal, and it was placed that really inspired my desire to get into business journalism. It was really the gold standard. I think it's gotten more. Tell me about journalism. Tell me about that. You know, like the Paul J Daly: 8:55 inspiration back, like, when did you, you know, hold that, that addition up in your hands, and with that the way the print feels, and you say, one day Wall Street Journal, Jamie Butters: 9:06 you know, I actually, I never, didn't know. I really, ever thought I would make it there. But when I was, when I was in college, you know, you they had, they'd have discounted subscriptions to the newspapers. You'd see them littered all up and down to college neighborhoods. Everyone subscribe, and then they don't always get up early in the morning to go bring them in. But, you know, yeah, talk about, I mean, back in the print era, and I grew up in their newspapers before the interwebs, and it was so great because they had the two new summary columns. They had the two, you know, main heavy stories, the the leaders, and then the a head, the feature story at the you know, that started around the middle of page one. Always was a super entertaining read. I love the, you know, the predictability of the format and the quality, you know, of what was in there. It's just like nobody could do what they did. Well, then a short time later, you know, a couple, a few people from the. Uh, the Wall Street Journal broke off and created Bloomberg News, and with the backing of the richest man in New York, built a quite an estimable news army Paul J Daly: 10:09 that'll help. Always helps. Jamie Butters: 10:11 Yep, yeah. So, you know, the the journal, Reuters and Bloomberg are sort of probably the biggest, you know, Global Business News entities and, and, yeah, the the Wall Street Journal has just always been, it's, it's such an iconic place. I mean, we talk about, you know, you look at the biggest measure of the market, or, you know, a lot of people even use it as measure of the economy, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average, I mean, that was created by Dow and Jones. And, you know, Dow Jones is the name of the of the company that owns the Wall Street Journal, and that is owned by News Corp. So it's, it's complicated, but, but it wasn't back in the day, right? Yeah, it wasn't, Paul J Daly: 10:52 it wasn't back in the day. And, you know, it's more complicated. So I think so a lot of our audience is definitely the dealer side. And, you know, automotive news is a staple. I, you know, I've just been in and out of hundreds and hundreds of dealerships in my career, and always see a copy of automotive news laying on the table in the GMs office or the owner's office. But I do also see a lot of Wall Street Journal and I had one very specific and probably the first time I became a Wall Street Journal readers because I was with, I was in Greg CEO senior office and the CEO water group. He's, he's broken through the top 50 now, and he's on a streak. And this was, I mean, this had to be over 10 years ago. And he gave me his copy of Wall Street Journal, and he said, he said, Paul, I read this every single morning, and it is one of the ways that I've been able to be as successful as I am. He goes because it's important that you know what's going on, not just here, but around you in the rest of the ecosystem. And he gave me a copy. Said you absolutely have to subscribe. From that day, I went home and I subscribed digital edition, and I've been I've paid attention ever since, and and honestly, I have to say that the the type of journalism that Wall Street Journal is will like has given to me over the last years, especially through all the tumultuous years of the pandemic and all of the social unrest and political unrest and all the things that have been going on there, there is, there is a bit of solace in the Wall Street Journal that I felt like I could, I could read and not walk away like riled up, I guess I should say. And so, so it's, it's always been an interesting thing. And like dealers I have known, like Mr. Cioca, who rely on it, you know, for not just the retail auto news, because, without a doubt, like, they don't talk that much about dealers. And when I do see a dealer in there, it's like my friend Earl Stewart from Earl Stewart Toyota, what used to be frequently quoted in The Wall Street Journal, because he's got such unique perspective on the industry. You have like I've learned so much from you and from Dan shine over the years, understanding the different components that it takes to cover the industry. I think a lot of our audience thinks of it retailers first, but then the understand the OEM is obviously an important part, suppliers, a very important part the political climate, or the geopolitical climate, and what's happening on vehicles, I think, has just come to the forefront more than it ever has in the last three years because of Chinese EVs and what has been going on, you know, in those pandemic years, I feel like, you know, we kind of got caught sleeping a little bit, tried to play catch up. But obviously that's a major component to what is going to be happening on the front lines of the dealership. So when you go there and the type like, tell us about the type of reporting you're going to be doing and why retail auto dealers should be paying attention to the coverage. Jamie Butters: 13:45 Yeah. I mean, Mr. Ciako is right, and it's good of you to take his advice, right? I mean, automotive news is absolutely essential. I think anybody at any stage in an automotive career needs to be reading Automotive News, whether you're a beginning engineer or accountant at a supplier or an automaker, or you're, you know, honestly, even, you know, I think a service tech, you know, any sales person should know more about what's going on in the industry than what their boss is telling them they need to do. Yeah, Paul J Daly: 14:14 I would say anybody, anybody that one has an aspiration to continue to grow in the industry, Jamie Butters: 14:19 we'll put it there right and then. But beyond that, you know, it's not just enough to know everything happening in your industry. You need more of that outside context. You know, there's only so much about the global economy or financial markets or even, you know, the Federal Reserve that automotive news can get into. But you know, somebody like the Wall Street Journal with teams around the globe. You know, really, you know, top experts covering, you know, finance and economics and other and you see parallels in other industries, some things that are similar, some things that are different. And it's great to read, you know, 1000 word, 3000 word story that takes you deep into a company in. An industry you wouldn't necessarily read about normally, but you can read that say, oh, yeah, that's like what we went through with cyber attack. That's what we went through with our generational employees trying to communicate to millennials and Gen Z, you know, and and there are lessons to be learned, and that perspective that comes from other, you know, high level news outlets, you know, and in the journal, I think is, is one of the highest Did I answer your question, or did I do something? But, but those, Paul J Daly: 15:34 I think, I think you answer Jamie Butters: 15:35 strongly about it. It's so important. You know, no one, and you shouldn't just read the Wall Street Journal, right? You should get a variety inputs and information from a variety of sources so you can, you know, weigh way a point of view against another, you know, hold each other accountable. You know, sometimes everybody gets it wrong. You know, what we try to have in the fourth estate, you know, sort of a self correcting mechanism, you know, if, if the Wall Street Journal writes something, and then the New York Times writes something that conflicts with it, you know, we're going to prosecute, we're going to dig in and try to see, you know, who's right, or how much of it's right, is there more nuance? Yeah. And hopefully, you know that competition draws everybody to the same, you know, conclusions, but along the way, it's always good to get multiple perspectives. Paul J Daly: 16:21 You know, we're in in this seismic shift right now of technology and writing in general, because of the emergence of, you know, AI and generative AI, and now, you know, AI, who is doing that, is doing research, deep research agents that are browsing the web. It's obviously upending just about every industry, but I feel like the news industry is toward the front of the pack, as far as the one that is being forced to have to, like, evolve and change and figuring out how is how, how are the humans going to remain important moving forward in this world where everyone's trying to, like, just deploy, I don't know. Let's just be honest. Like, people try to deploy fast technology to get a mediocre response right, because they deploy the technology fast and the and like, how do we, how do we move forward as a news industry in this world where this is people are able to get these fast answers that they maybe don't vet fully. It's complex question answering. Yeah, no. I mean, it's we have left, but we could do a whole hour on this. Jamie Butters: 17:28 I mean, it's challenging for news consumers, whatever you know they're trying to learn about. But I think you know there is, there's definitely value in in the trust that the readers can have in a brand like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, automotive news, etc, and but also it's there's no substitute for the actual reporting. I mean, AI can give you an answer. You can spit anything into Google or Siri, and they'll give you an answer. And they're doing the best they can, but all they can use is the information that's already been published by somebody, and that has to start with reporters on the ground, you know, editors and reporters, journalists making connections between, you know, one policy and another, or one trend and another. You know, that's where the you know, you have to go out and talk to the dealers, talk to the executives, talk to the analysts, you know. So it isn't just analyst reports and press releases that are being digested by an AI bot. You know, the humans have to, maybe they use those AI tools sometimes, but they have to be the ones, you know, deciding kind of, you know what's news, and why is it news? You know what people can get the news. They can get the information. What did GM report in its earnings last week? But it's you know, why? Why were the earnings down? And how did the tariffs affect the earnings? And what does the company have to say about how they're moving forward? What do other people have to say about it? How confident are the dealers? And it's the journalists who have to go out and ask those questions, get the good answers from trusted, you know, reliable sources. You know data sources and the dealers themselves, dealer, you know reliable people on the ground who will tell you what's going on. You know, that's what we can provide. And I feel like that's our best defense against AI is to have the human intelligence, the human relations, and relay those in a, you know, hopefully in a compelling, you know, storytelling way. Paul J Daly: 19:31 I also feel like sentiment, control is something that, and I'll say control, but like, I mean keeping it on the rails, right? Because a lot of times you have this, like ambitious, I'll call it ambitious sentiment that comes across from some people in the news industry and, like, not getting political, but whatever you believe, whatever your beliefs are, right, there is a there's no shortage of passionate sentiment that comes alongside the facts. And so I think that measured down the line, humans who. People who are saying, we're reporting the facts, we're asking the question, we're building, the connections, really, these are like harbingers of trust that we need, and I think we'll continue to need, as people start to believe less and less of what they see Jamie Butters: 20:12 with AI, with AI in that front too. You're right. I mean, the it's it's amazing, the things you see already on social media, and that looks so real, or so nearly real, you know, you can believe them if you want to. You can kind of believe them if you want to. Maybe it's just a special effect, you know, on a real person. But it's not going to be long before they they will just look so real, and you're going to have to have some provenance, you know, whether you say I can trust this video, because it literally is coming from whitehouse.gov, right? That's how I believe it's the president, or it's coming from, you know, Fox News. It's coming from CBS. It's gonna, you know, it's some, somebody that we know is telling us they vetted it and that it's real. But all the other stuff you just see shared around on, you know, Twitter and Instagram is going to have a higher and higher propensity to be fake. Paul J Daly: 21:08 Yeah. So last question, because we only have about a minute left, where can we see and read and pay attention to your work moving forward, what exactly you're going to be doing and where can we see your work? Jamie Butters: 21:21 Yeah, well, you know, wsj.com is our, is our main platform, if you go autos, is not the biggest part of the Wall Street Journal anymore. It was maybe 30 years ago. Was very big part. It's a little less now. But if you, if you look in across the top, there'll be tabs, you know, politics and world, and one is business, and you drop down and there's an auto you can always see, you know, there's always a handful of stories, story or three. And you know, that's where we'll be feeding the beast. I'll have six reporters starting out, and two in Detroit, two in New York and two in Chicago, covering manufacturing. So I'll be over autos and manufacturing. Look forward to really having this great big stage to tell auto stories, but especially after, you know, my six and a half years at a n sharing some of the insights that I've gleaned about the retail business. You know, with the broader Wall Street Journal audience, I think they're going to find this industry, that part of the industry, as fascinating as I do. Paul J Daly: 22:37 Yeah, well, I hope so. Jamie, it's been a pleasure to spend some time with you today. Thanks for giving us some time. And best, time, and best of luck on your first, your first foray into the Wall Street Journal, which sounds like it was kind of a childhood Jamie Butters: 22:48 dream. Thanks so much, Paul. You've you guys been such great support for me all these years. Kyle Mountsier: 22:56 I think that has to be his real name, the one that Michael said before, before you talk to him, I think that has Paul J Daly: 23:01 to be Thaddeus, Bartholomew butters. It has to be, now that he's with walking journal, he has to be official like that. He's a four name. He's a four name, person like Jamie. The first time I ever met him, I all of a sudden was like, I really like this guy's vibes. And you don't know, right? Like, he's just a name in the in the auto news that, you know what I mean. And I think he's honestly, I think he's got Bill Pullman vibes. You know, Bill Pullman Independence Day, that's Jamie butters. But the fact that he's getting to go to kind of like, you know, I won't say a childhood dream, but like when he started into journalism in college, the fact that Wall Street Journal was always like, that aspirational, you know, trying to get there is great to see him get there. But also, like you, you kind of said this when we, before we started the interview, Kyle, that there's an opportunity now for a deeper understanding of the retail dealer to become more broadly known in in Wall Street Journal, because he didn't even know much about it when he started at Automotive News, and then he just built a lot of relationships there. So I'm looking forward to that part of it. I mean, he's, he's he's the guy you want on your team, Michael Cirillo: 24:03 period. I hope he fact checks us. I mean, this is such a big part. You guys talked a little bit about an AI driven world. I'd like to think it's going to be like an AI augmented or enhanced world, but journalism, to your point where we started, is going to be so critical for authenticating. I think it's gonna it's like a weird reversal. It's like human authentication will be really important in a AI, authenticated world Kyle Mountsier: 24:30 so wild. Well, hey look, Jamie, on behalf of the team here at ASOTU, more than cars and our entire industry. Kudos to you. Automotive news will miss you, but the Wall Street Journal crew, I'm sure, will get the best of what we know is possible in retail auto if you haven't gone to Jamie's LinkedIn, congratulate him on the new role and follow Him for all the stuff that he's going to be sharing with much more culture at the Wall Street Journal. On behalf of Paul J Daly, Michael Cirillo. And myself. Kyle mouse here. See you next time here on auto Collabs, Unknown: 25:03 sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for a free shot of relevant news and automotive retail media and pop culture. You can get it now@asotu.com that's asotu.com if you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time. Welcome to Annika labs. You.