How 'U.S. News' Outsmarted 'Consumer Reports'

Whether or not the new strategy of U.S. News & World Report succeeds, it will accomplish one thing: Forcing an existential crisis upon Consumer Reports.

Long a rival to Time and Newsweek, U.S. News is now going right at the Consumer Reports sweet spot, rolling out new websites and special issues devoted to authoritative ratings of cars, electronics and other pricey buyables.

The sites will be advertiser-supported, and the demand is there: The new automotive site has already sold out its inventory, reports The New York Times. (And why not? What better place to advertise than on a site people visit only when they're contemplating a purchase?)

This would ordinarily be the part where Consumer Reports, which so far has been very successful at selling web subscriptions, starts thinking about dumping its website's pay model, recognizing that it can't possibly win the fight for readers against a free competitor.

But it's not that simple. To keep its reviews untainted, Consumer Reports accepts no outside advertising. Its favor can't be bought, or so it would like you to believe. To suddenly drop that principled policy and start taking ad bucks would be, in essence, to sacrifice the very thing upon which its authority is premised.

U.S. News has a clever way around the credibility problem. Its editors make no actual critical judgments; they merely aggregate the judgments of others and synthesize them into a single rating with the aid of an algorithm.

Consumer Reports, consider yourself outflanked.