Surely, you have all heard the news about the violent turn of events right after the Nexus launch of Auto Prominence Corp. last week. And just as surely, you have all made up your minds as to whom to believe. Those of you who chose to believe me and our two colleagues who were with me during the incident, please know that you have my profoundest respect and gratitude.

Many of you called the morning after just to check on us, and that was more than enough. You offered to help in exposing those thugs, but I honestly don’t want to compromise your own safety. After hearing their boss repeatedly tell me, “You don’t know us. I can put a bullet in your head right now,” the last thing I want is to see you get caught in the crossfire. But thank you; I hope I get the chance to return the favor one day.

What I want to ask of you instead is to spare a little of your time and ponder on what I have to share in this letter. Escaping death has been known to impart the kind of wisdom that has nothing to do with deceiving the public and the kind of courage that has nothing to do with punching people. This wisdom and this courage could only come from telling the truth and then almost losing your life because of it.

First, I realized that we must constantly show we are not a bunch of brochure writers. Many dismiss us as nothing more than junket-availing/buffet-partaking/raffle-expecting/car-wrecking journalism wannabes who do what we do because, well, we have nothing better to do. Hence, there are people who abuse us and assign us the role of corporate mouthpieces whose net worth is determined by how well we say what they want us to say. These people see us as walking word factories that need only to be handed bags of giveaways and corporate propaganda that we otherwise call press kits. They feed us lunch and throw us a shirt and they think they own us.

Hit hard and they will threaten to pull out as advertisers. Be frank and honest and they will take you off their media list. Call a spade a spade and they will ask their goons to beat you up. Which is why I will forever admire the professional people in the local auto industry who simply grin and bear it every time we deviate from popular opinion and come up with our own—no matter how blasphemous that opinion might be.

Albert Einstein said it best: “If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.”

I know full well that some of you detest me for being so arrogantly hard on our colleagues who do PR work or complain about insignificant raffle prizes or damage cars and are not even apologetic about it. But the Auto Prominence incident is precisely the reason I want all of us to be beyond reproach in the way we perform our duties. They beat us not really because they could; they beat us because that was how little they saw us. And that littleness is the result of every foul act that all of us have committed—yes, including me.

Second, the truth—in whatever form or shape—is always newsworthy. It is also liberating. Someone once said that the truth is the only safe ground that you can stand upon. And motoring is a wonderful world with a gazillion of truths itching to be told. Don’t believe those who suggest that all we’re capable of doing is quote horsepower figures and describe how tenaciously a car hugs a bend.

We have to realize that motoring, in fact, is much more essential to everyday life than Manny Pacquiao or mesotherapy or wireless Internet technology. Our readers are dying to read stories that go beyond glitzy car launches and scenic out-of-town drives.

Third, the readers—not our publishers, not the car manufacturers and certainly not corporate hoodlums—are the boss. We have to respect the price that they pay to buy our newspapers and magazines. We have to respect the amount of time that they set aside to find out what we have to say. We have to respect, most of all, the level of trust that they bestow upon us just to believe everything that we tell them.

We disrespect them each time we withhold a truth from them, resulting, for instance, in a poor car choice. We disrespect them each time we let our friendships within the car industry influence our supposedly professional opinions. We disrespect them each time we sugarcoat a story just because we are beholden to the subject. And yes, we will disrespect them now if we get cowed by journalist-mauling bullies.

No, I have no desire to be the Howard Stern of the motoring beat, as one Internet forum member suspects. Neither do I wish to be the beat’s sanctimonious Jimmy Swaggart, as you yourselves might suspect. I’m only someone who now truly thinks being a motoring journalist is a proud and noble calling. And it’s worth taking a bullet in the head for.

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