“When somebody got mad at us, I just viewed it as a part of the job,” says Dave Kanicki. “We had our values and knew how we wanted to operate, and we had to stand behind them. I talked to more than a few irate manufacturers over those years.”

From what I observed, the majors weren't used to anyone in the media standing up to them. We were about the only national ag media that wasn’t courting their advertising dollars. 

They would say stuff like, “Well, we'd advertise with you if you didn't write that in Ag Equipment Intelligence.” Early on, we reestablished the tone that if you do something that affects the farm equipment business, we are going to write about it. 

Those angry callers would ask where we got the intel we’d published. I'd respond by asking if it was wrong and if it was, that we’d immediately issue a correction. And 9 times out of 10, the response was, “No, it's not wrong, but dammit, we didn't want it out there.” 

Some dealers and manufacturers respected our courage. Dick Brown, who was running Krause Corp., was one who tipped his cap to us, even though he cautioned us that we would likely lose out on invitations to media junkets and access to their executives. 

But dealers were funneling things to us, even company memos; that's how much the dealers trusted us — and wanted our help.

Kanicki remembers the brand loyalty studies were another area that drew major-line ire. “I can't tell you how many calls and emails from the majors I received about those reports. Because we surveyed farmers about who they were loyal to, who they weren’t loyal to, and why. 

“The OEMs whose loyalty was shown to decline would dismiss the report as inaccurate. But one of the majors — a top guy in North America — used the report directionally. He didn't like the results, and of course, he made that clear. But a few years later, sitting down with him at one of the big equipment shows, he admitted that the report was “the impetus for us improving our parts operation because we did not want to be viewed that way."

Brand Purity Tactics

Another subject that caused hard feelings with the majors was calling out their brand purity and anti-shortline tactics. John Deere in particular did not want their dealers handling non-green products and were working toward that means via “indirect” tactics. At the same time, Deere was terminating a lot of single-store or small-operation companies. So, we were writing stories about people who had been terminated; some disappeared and others tried to make it as independents. Those stories weren't popular with the majors. They didn't want us reporting on contract terminations. And once Deere had success with it, the trend started trickling over into the other colors.

An executive at Case IH, Mario Ferla, once said publicly that it was “sinful” to promote shortlines when dealers had Case IH to offer. And Frank Anglin, the Case IH Ag VP, had to defend that comment at a dealer association meeting. And we covered it, including pointing out the handful of targeted shortlines Ferla did not want to see on his dealers’ lots. The Case IH people were stunned that this coverage appeared in our publications.

Case IH’s communications manager insisted on a breakfast in downtown Milwaukee because she (or the higher ups) thought there was a problem with us picking on Case IH. It ended up being a productive meeting, and we got our point across that we’d keep the major OEMs honest. If you say things and do things, that impact dealers or other manufacturers, we are going to cover it in our pages.

Titan & Walterman Implement

But it wasn’t only the majors we occasionally had to go toe-to-toe with. Another story that was revisiting the Walterman scandal spurred a call from David Meyer at Titan Machinery. 

Kanicki wrote a great “looking back” piece on the Walterman Implement bankruptcy and scandal surrounding fraudulent combine rolling in the early 2000s. Racine headquarters heard about our plans for the story and didn’t want to reopen any old wounds.

Kanicki and I had a conference call with Titan’s Meyer, who was getting pressure from Case IH to get us to kill the story, even though Case IH and Titan Machinery made the best out of an ugly situation. The Case IH people did not want any finger-pointing back at them. We listened, but we hung tight and said we needed to tell this story 1) to remind people how this type of fraud in rolling combines can happen and 2) because it was our responsibility to cover it and find some teachable value in the tragedy.

At the end, Meyer saw our point. It was covered in a responsible way and was a story no one else was telling.

Executive Interviews

Besides the DOY visits, some of our other favorite stories included the Executive Interview series. These weren’t PR-type interviews; we asked tough questions that were on our agenda, not theirs. We covered hard topics and pushed them until they answered the questions. We did that on several occasions. Some chose not to participate in subsequent years. 

Schmidt recalls her stories on workforce development and tech shortages as among her favorite subjects, and the more recent “Right to Repair” stories, where she went public with the magazine’s stance on a topic few if any other business media would commit to. “We had to have a stance on the issue, and shared that we were aligned with the dealers and manufacturers,” she says. It was also bold for a company that also published 3 grower-facing publications.

Her writings helped her earn her official Farm Equipment rite of passage. “This was my first go at getting called names in the comments, including the declaration that I was a shill for John Deere. That was a first.”

Difference-Making Content

We showed leadership in covering contract terminations as well as some of the language that was going into new contracts that we brought out into the open. Dealers indicated that they’d found out through our reporting what was in their new contract that they failed to open. And I happen to know that our coverage and the dialog that ensued resulted in a softening of language.

While we were unpopular at times, the industry responded with plenty of praise and comments, though often “off the record” for fear of retaliatory tactics. We purposefully rattled the cage at times to make sure people knew what was going on and that things impacting the business were indeed going to be covered in our media.

Kanicki recalls giving a speech in Minneapolis at an investment banking event, and one of the majors’ VPs of investor relations was there. He suggested to Kanicki that the two leave the high-rise and take a walk. “He said, ‘I'm not sure you realize what impact Farm Equipment and Ag Equipment Intelligence have had on this industry,” Kanicki recalls. ‘You have made this industry better for what you’ve done.’“That was all the reward I ever needed to know that we were helping the farm equipment business and the dealers out there.”