motoring magazines

I grew up reading all kinds of car magazines such as Road & Track, Evo, Autocar, Car, Performance Car, Motor Trend and Fast Car. I also watched a lot of Top Gear, Best Motoring (Japan) and many other motoring programs. I grew to appreciate the amount of work that goes into the journalism and also the comments whether they are a true reflection of the car itself or it was paid to say good things about the car. International magazines such as Motor Trend and Autocar seem quite neutral about their views regarding a car and provide good and honest feedback regardless if it is good or bad. To me this is true journalism.
If you read some magazines like Top Gear the reviews are generally quite good but often it is skewed towards British cars. Similarly for motoring shows like Best Motoring from Japan, the comparisons very often look questionable when they pit Japanese cars against European cars and make the Japanese cars look better than the European cars. There will always be a certain level of patriotism in journalism. It also applies to Americans too where test driver Randy Pobst will always favour an American made car.
In countries like Malaysia where the motoring journalists are expected to say good things about local made cars such as Proton, as a consumer it is down right frustrating to read the publication. This applies to the local newspapers that periodically do car features. This is one of the reasons why people love Jeremy Clarkson so much, he will tell it like it is... despite his usual bias towards British and European cars but he will comment fairly if the car is badly designed. Jeremy Clarkson has an army of fans in Asia and appreciate his brand of humour and brutal honesty about a car. No one really wants to read some story about a car that is all prepared by a marketing team from a car company. The readers want to read the real comment and feedback from journalists who has driven the car.
I always feel cheated if I read an article about a car that has been padded up but does not live up to what it was described in the article.
I would part with this piece of advise, do not buy a car just because you read good reviews about it in magazines. Always test drive it and get your own opinion about it. Not everyone shares the same opinion. Magazine car reviews are very subjective and somethings may appeal to a journalist but it may not necessarily appeal to you.