Jackie Charniga is an automotive reporter for the Detroit Free Press who covers general auto assignments and General Motors. Previously, she covered finance-and-insurance in automotive retail at Automotive News.
Can you tell us what types of stories, trends or issues are on your radar now?
Stories about advanced driver-assist systems, electric vehicle battery technology, the broader automotive supply chain and vehicle affordability seem to be chronic for the industry these days. Personally, I’m interested in exploring Detroit’s future in automotive and how the city evolves alongside the automakers that operate in the state.
Describe the craziest or most fun story you have written.
I wouldn’t be surprised if my answer mirrors that of other automotive journalists active at the time, but it’s the series of stories about who broke the world record in annual vehicle sales.
When I was still an intern at Automotive News, a dealership in Dearborn claimed to have broken the longstanding record of most vehicles sold by one person in a year – 1,425 – by Joe Girard in 1973. Girard refuted the claims, and ended up suing the car salesman, Ali Reda, “claiming loss of reputation in the community and economic loss, including, but not limited to, loss of book sales, loss of income, loss of opportunities and loss of earning capacity.” His lawyers sent letters to most of the outlets that covered the situation demanding retractions. The matter was settled and dismissed in the circuit court for Wayne County, Mich., on Nov. 26, 2018. When he died suddenly in 2019 after a fall in his home, as the Detroit Free Press first reported, I wrote the obituary for my outlet. A weird way to close that loop to be sure and still my strangest reporting experience.
What story or stories are you most proud of?
This might be lame, but I don’t have a favorite. I’m proud of almost every enterprise-level project I’ve undertaken, like the intersection between the opioid epidemic and auto manufacturing and, most recently, the culture clash between Silicon Valley entrants to Midwestern-based automotive companies.
What elements or characteristics do you look for in a story?
Relevance to my audience is first and foremost. If that’s not immediately clear, but I’m confident in my abilities to explain why the reader should care about the particular idea or news that I’m telling them about, I am even more excited about the undertaking. It’s like a game – how do I keep a reader’s attention through a long story (they’re usually long) that may not seem newsworthy on the surface? Will they break away before getting to the point, before understanding the far-reaching implications for the industry? If so, I’ve lost.
How long have you been in journalism and how did you get started?
My first ever reporting experience was serving as the editor-in-chief of the Schoolcraft Connection while I got my associate’s degree. For several issues, my printed title was actually “editor-in-cheif” before our copy desk caught the error.
From there, I became a senior news editor at the Michigan Daily when I transferred to the University of Michigan. My first-ever internship was with Automotive News, as was my first-ever full-time job when they hired me a year later. It seems easy listing the career journey out like that, but in retrospect, it was all luck.
That’s where I got started, but the how is more complicated – I wanted to write, and journalism appeared the most immediate method of testing and then honing that ability.
Journalistic style forces writers to get to the point quickly, and the trick is to express ideas as completely and clearly as possible in as few words as possible. It’s a constant exercise in finding entertaining ways to explain important events to real people who rely on you for accuracy. The worst thing journalism can do is waste time.
It also – vitally – teaches writers how to show their work. Journalists constantly prove where and how they got their information, and describe when they speak to experts, why that person is credible. Good practice for life, I think.
Finish this sentence: If I am not reporting, I am …
Watching television or reading. After working in a bookstore for 10 years and pursuing exclusively arts, writing and English degrees, I’m pretty much always reading.
What advice do you have for PR people who want to pitch you?
Any email (yes, please start with an email) should have the following: (1) Proof that you have working knowledge of either my recent work, my publication or the audience I am trying to court. (2) A reason, based on the previous, why I should consider writing about the topic you propose or look to the person you’re offering to pursue a story. (3) A method of contacting you, the person you’re hoping that I reach out to, or additional resources where I can quickly vet this person or corporation. If I don’t reply but you feel that I really should, please follow up. Trust me, it’s not rude, I’m just really busy and my inbox fills up fast.
Any pet peeves with PR people?
See above but picture the opposite. I know some excellent reporters that have pre-written and totally scathing replies to PR people who pitch off-topic stories. I promise I’m not that bad. But I get it. Pitching something completely unrelated to my beat, or something that I literally just covered and therefore wouldn’t be interested in covering again only days later, is obnoxious. Unless you have an absolutely amazing suggestion that I hadn’t thought of, tread carefully. And a personal touch goes a long way. Any small detail that lets me know this message wasn’t automated, that you are a real person that I can get ahold of, is useful and far more likely to get a response.
Tell us a little about yourself (family, interests, hobbies, background, some fact about you that few people know, etc.)
I live in an apartment in downtown Detroit with my long-term boyfriend who is also an automotive journalist. I have two sisters, twins, who are both scientists – one is a pharmacist and the other is an epidemiologist. My mom is retired but also fabulous, a former travel agent, which leads me to my interesting fact. Something unexpected about me is that I’m exceptionally well-traveled. I spent most of my life accompanying my father on his work trips to international weightlifting competitions where we would record and photograph the lifts for his books and website, sportivnypress.com. Because of that, I’ve visited over a dozen countries, many of them several times, across South America, Europe, Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. Also, Canada but that doesn’t count when you’re from metro Detroit.
You can follow Jackie on X.
