Kim Kleman, the editor of Consumer Reports, writes for Nieman Reports about the differences on product reviews in personal finance journalism.
Kleman writes, “Actually, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s room in the universe, indeed, an important place, for both personal and professional reviews. I don’t pretend to understand the fine points of movie, restaurant or theater reviewing. What I know about product reviews, however, suggests that readers will pay for information they consider valuable and that you do better than anyone else. User reviews — what real consumers focus on, gripe or rave about — can help inform that coverage.
“Product testing has been the backbone of Consumer Reports since its founding 77 years ago, in 1936. We’re a nonprofit group, we buy every product we rate, we take no advertising from manufacturers — our founders wisely believed that our product ratings could be seen as suspect if they were sandwiched between various manufacturers ads — and so subscription sales largely fuel the revenue of our organization. (Grants and donations account for a small percentage of overall revenue.) You could say we were among the first publishers to adequately value our content.
“Our immense surveys of readers, the basis of our exclusive brand reliability information, and our ratings of service providers such as hotels and cell phone carriers, are second in size only to the U.S. Census, we believe. So we’ve actually embraced user reviews for many decades.
“In some circles, the rap on Consumer Reports is that we’re dream killers. That cherry of a sports car—the one you hope to buy when you finally ‘arrive’? Consumer Reports says it’s unreliable! That pro-style range you have your heart set on, the one the Joneses already bought? Consumer Reports says there are far better and cheaper choices!”
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