Good Morning America to cover the HF'07 MPG challenge

[ericbecky]

I saw the GMA TV segment when it aired in the 7:00 hour of the show.
Later in the morning, the local affiliate ran the same segment.

[JZumbrun]

Originally Posted by Sledge

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3404022&page=1

Text only

LOL, that's my wrist! I hope they have video up later... I was sound asleep when it aired.

[xcel]

Hi All:

___A terrible news article for those of us that attended HF2007 to say the least. No mention of HF2007 other then a single word on the FE challenge event and a few pics in the background at the FE challenge. The stuff about drafting appears even though every one of those newsies draft far dangerously then most of us ever do. How does one draft with an average speed of 21 mph anyway? And then the tire pressure comment by the online personality near the end was so far from the truth she hadn’t a clue as to what she was talking about or said

___Hybridfest 2007 deserved far better coverage then the slant ABC News broadcast and I for one was extremely disappointed. Especially after receiving over 32 mpg coming home from HF2007 in the Acura MDX (17/23 city/highway) by following the speed limits and being completely legal vs. 98% + of those on the roads that were not and not even coming close to being legal let alone even coming near their EPA in whatever traveling at 5 to 15 + over

___Josh, how did they come across when doing the in-car interview? That portion of the segment appeared to be pretty clean by my recollection?

___Good Luck

___Wayne

[tbaleno]

It wasn't too bad. At least they qualified the extreme techniques by saying only extreme hypermilers use them. They did a good job at showing regular techniques that the common person could use.

[JZumbrun]

Originally Posted by xcel

___Hybridfest 2007 deserved far better coverage then the slant ABC News broadcast and I for one was extremely disappointed. Especially after receiving over 32 mpg coming home from HF2007 in the Acura MDX (17/23 city/highway) by following the speed limits and being completely legal vs. 98% + of those on the roads that were not and not even coming close to being legal let alone even coming near their EPA in whatever traveling at 5 to 15 + over

___Josh, how did they come across when doing the in-car interview? That portion of the segment appeared to be pretty clean by my recollection?

___Good Luck

___Wayne

I don't know that much about it really. I got an e-mail from the GMA producer on Thursday asking if I was available Friday and I said sure. So we drove around for a couple of hours filming the segment (it was about 100 that day and during some of the scenes we had the AC on almost full blast with the window open because the cameraman had to hang out the window to film me driving, I was like "Uh... AC with window open is not good hypermiling.")

I haven't seen it yet so I don't know how it came out. I said at one point something like "If more people were hypermilers the roads would be a lot safer, because a big part of hypermiling is paying attention while you drive." But I guess that quote didn't make it in...

That's really too bad if they gave hybridfest short shrift. I think the way it usually works for these giant network news broadcasts is that they have their most experienced correspondents in DC and NYC, and then they have a lot of local ABC correspondents throughout the country who pitch them ideas. So it's possible that the local person at Hybridfest just didn't have the experience to get as good of material as we all would have liked.

Still, I wouldn't be too discouraged by the coverage. GMA has an audience of around 6 million people -- that's a huge audience -- if just 1 percent of that audience goes online and googles hypermiling and finds the Mother Jones article, or this forum, it still has the potential to make a huge impact!

[lightfoot]

I wanted to tape it but the GMA website is so busy giving you video ads they seem to have forgotten to post a schedule for when the show runs! Finally saw a video clip of the hypermiling segment and it was reasonably good, if a bit chopped up, until the studio bit at the very end. Which left me thinking, "Do the hosts have to get a lobotomy or something before they can get the job?" Nary a rational thought to be found. Now I know why I'm not one of the 6 million viewers!

[bradlee]

Josh, you've certainly have come a long way since I first schmoozed with you at Motorwerks when you were picking up your Insight several years ago. I'm proud that I could get you off on a good start and that you're still "workn 'it".

About your comment regarding 'local people" not having the knowledge, three ABC people were on site for probably over 6-8 hours and certainly would have had a wealth of good info to share with corporate. The overall report, especially your segment was great, but once again the "experts" had to put a bad tone to the piece by sharing the typical negative stuff about drafting and tires. It gets old after a time. If they add things like that there should be rebuttal time or something. It leaves a bad taste.

I guess exposure is exposure.

Keep up you good work Josh.

Bradlee
Milwaukeehybridgroup.com

[TheForce]

Here is the video of the coverage.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...37591907091241