Hanging on a wall in my home office is a framed copy of the last Sunday magazine The Dallas Morning News published, featuring a cover story written by me. Framed along with it is a tongue-in-cheek letter from the executive editor at the time saying it couldn’t be officially determined whether my excessive freelance writing for the magazine led to its demise.
I was a woefully underpaid young reporter (a redundant phrase, to be sure) at the Morning News and would try to pad my city desk salary by taking extra work writing for the magazine.
Thirty-some years later, here I am again witness to another magazine ceasing publication. After a lot of discussion at Automotive News, the decision was made to stop publishing Fixed Ops Journal. This issue will be the last.
But unlike the Sunday magazine, there is a second act for Automotive News‘ coverage of service, parts and collision. More about that in a minute.
The decision to cease publishing Fixed Ops Journal was not made lightly. It is a publication that is highly regarded in the industry and has become a must-read in the service department. For the 18 issues I was editor, I heard countless positive remarks in person and on social media. I know how important this publication is to you — for not only informing you but also for shining a light on the back end of dealerships, which can account for half the profits but not enough of the accolades.
But at Automotive News, we’ve adopted a more “audience-obsessed” mindset — meaning we factor in how our readers are consuming our work when making decisions. What we’ve heard through surveys and personal feedback is that many of you never see the magazine, never hold it in your hands.
Instead, it’s typically delivered to the office of the dealer principal or general manager and almost never makes its way back to service. As a result, many of you read it on autonews.com.
Additionally, many of you told us you’d like to see service and parts coverage more often than the every-other-month cadence of FOJ. It’s an important coverage area for you; therefore, it’s an important coverage area for us.
Beginning in January, there will be a service and parts page in Automotive News every other week. Previously, there was just one page per month. Additionally, there will be an email newsletter delivered to your inbox every week. That’s an increase from the once-a-month e-newsletter in the past.
In addition to the latest news, the weekly newsletter will feature a video interview with some of the best service and parts minds about challenges they’re facing and how they’re overcoming them. The newsletters also will include some of the regular features from the magazine such as Legal Lane, Feedback and Service Counter.
In both Automotive News and in the newsletter, our coverage focus will not change. We’ll continue to explore personnel issues such as training, recruitment and compensation. We will examine management strategies — how to ditch the silos and work with other dealership departments and the best way to market a dealership’s back end.
We will interview the brightest minds in the business, gleaning the processes and best practices that make their departments profitable and keep their customers coming back.
What won’t change is our unbending commitment to quality journalism conducted under the standards and ethics Automotive News demands. We will continue to leverage the talents of the Automotive News staff as well as a stable of professional freelance automotive journalists to bring you news and features to help you operate more efficiently and profitably.
Founding editor Dave Versical, in his first Fixed Ops Journal column, talked about the inevitability of an auto sales slump and how “those who don’t have the fixed side of their business in shape are going to hit the rockiest road.”
The goal of the magazine, he wrote, was to “help smooth your ride through the next slump, too, as well as through all the peaks and valleys beyond.”
Before signing off, I have to thank the incredible Automotive News staff who have helped bring this magazine to you during the past seven years and 40 issues. Please take a look at their names in the staff box on Page 3. The copy editors who fact-check the work and write tremendous headlines. The steady professionalism of Mary Beth Vander Schaaf, our senior director of editorial operations, who won’t let this magazine go to the printer without everything being just right. Reporter Richard Truett, who has been a trusted sounding board and a guy who knows his way around an engine. The stable of talented freelancers. And Design Director Steve Massie, who has lent his creativity from the first issue to the last — and constantly calmed my nerves when I was convinced we’d miss our deadlines.
And a special thanks to you for reading all these years. Keep reading — there are great things ahead.