Consumer Reports editor argues for more and better consumer reporting

By Marty Steffens

SABEW Chair

(Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of articles covering the Fall SABEW conference, being held at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill on Oct. 20-21.)

We’re live at the SABEW workshop on the University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill.

Kimberly Kleman, editor-in-chief of Consumer Reports, speaks on her magazine, and the state of consumer reporting

Consumer Reports, with 4.3 million subscribers to magazine, and 3 million web subscribers, has the largest paid subscriber base in the world. It tests products of all kinds at its 50 labs in Yonkers, N.Y., and tests autos at its 500-acre site in Connecticut. Its main subscriber is male, 50-plus years old. The magazine buys everything it tests, although some of it is resold to staff, offsetting the budget.

On her magazine:

• Our subscribers want us to delve into consumer issues that don’t involve products such as health care. But we want to make stories our own – not just a story for policy wonks.
• For example, we can deconstruct pharmaceutical ads that other publications can’t do because they run those ads.
• The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has video of crash tests. How vehicles perform with optional side curtain airbags… So we have those videos on our website.
• The name of our new magazine on ShopSmart. It’s not necessary for people who want use to parse features, just tell us what are the best three (items). It’s for time-pressed people who don’t want to wait for the magazine.
• Web readers are in their early 40s – eight or nine years younger than our magazine readers.
• We need to open up the story, make it less dense, and add white space.
• Will the magazine use user-generated content? It’s created debates at Consumer Reports. We’re known for testing, but millions want to weigh in. We’re trying to use more, especially in the area of durability testing. This happened with a blender. We top-rated it, but we got feedback about how a plastic piece snapped. Users often will own something we haven’t tested. If we can incorporate user views, then people come to our website and aren’t disappointed.

On consumer and business journalism:

• The best stories ARE consumer stories – how things affect real people and real communities.
• The best stories come from beat reporting.
• It’s a great idea for newspapers to have “action” columns – that’s great for journalist to do….
• How do you make consumer reporting interesting? I don’t like to read evergreen tip stories, like the Five Best Ways to do something…. What’s better is people’s real experience with money, such as negotiating doctor bills if they are uninsured. Put a query in…what are people’s real experiences in solving problems? Also make consumer reporting everybody’s beat, not just the consumer reporter.

On testing:

• The car seat fiasco: We had the noble goal of testing car seats the same way that cars are tested. Consumer Reports didn’t have the expertise in dealing with the physics of side crash, so we went to an outside expertise. In a miscommunication, we actually tested it at double the speed. We had to pull the story and apologize. We can only do that once.
• What about subjectivity? We do use user panels, and explain how tests are performed. But we do understand that the difference between good and very good might be acceptable to a consumer (discussing television quality.)

On air purifiers:

• We not only tell people what to buy, but what NOT to buy. Our bottom line advice is that if you are buying it for allergies or asthma, it might make it worse. A better strategy might be to open your windows or vacuum more often.
• What we’re finding now is that some companies are promoting “ozone” generating filters, but (could) exacerbate breathing problems.

Posted Oct. 20, 2007