Kim Kleman, CONSUMER REPORTS editor: Mr. Media Radio Interview (Rewind)

Editor Kim Kleman rats out Mr. Media to Consumer Reports!

(Originally broadcast August 22, 2007) In the 1970’s, my dad never made any purchase of substance without consulting Consumer Reports. Vacuum cleaners, toaster ovens, window air conditioners, used cars -- he never made a move without CR.

In those pre-Internet days, he collected the magazine’s back issues the way I collected comic books. I just kept my comics a lot neater and more organized than he did his magazines.

Today’s Consumer Reports is very different from the one my dad admired, thanks to the Internet. There are a whole host of web sites and services competing to provide consumer information in what used to be a niche owned solely by Consumer Reports. Consumers now have instant free access to consumer-written product performance reviews from Amazon.com to Epinions and everywhere in between. In the wired world, it seems, everybody has an opinion and wants to share it.

We’ll talk about that today with my guest Kim Kleman. Kim is the new editor of Consumer Reports, the flagship publication of Consumers Union. She’s also an old acquaintance whom I worked with at the Tampa Tribune twenty years ago and whom my wife worked with at the St. Petersburg Times. Kim joined Consumer Reports in 1997 and has since been managing editor, deputy editor, and special assignments editor, shepherding award-winning investigative projects. Earlier this year, Kim was promoted to editor-in-chief.