Dan Neil is an American journalist, widely known an automotive columnist for The Wall Street Journal[2] and a former staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, AutoWeek and Car and Driver.
Awarded for his LA Times column Rumble Seat, the Pulitzer board noted Neil's "one-of-a-kind reviews of automobiles, blending technical expertise with offbeat humor and astute cultural criticism.
After four years of trying to get pregnant and several in-vitro fertilization procedures, Neil's wife conceived four embryos in a high risk, "white knuckle pregnancy."
[9] Neil lived in Los Angeles before moving again to North Carolina, when he left the L.A. Times and began writing for The Wall Street Journal.
[11] Beginning with his work at The News & Observer, Neil developed his writing style, combining humor with pragmatic insight, literary analogies and personal experience.
"[14] The News and Observer reported Neil's recollection of the column in an interview years later:"I wrote at some point about the kids getting into the Ford Expedition and commenting on the 'footprints' on the windshield.
[6][14] Notably, Keith Bradsher — author of a book about SUV's called High and Mighty — indicated that among critics, "auto reviewers are the most likely to be compromised by the industry they cover.
800 Words was discontinued in 2008 after the Los Angeles Times Magazine was transferred from the editorial department to the paper's business division — and advertiser control.
[2] In 2008, Neil participated in a federal class action suit against Sam Zell, who in 2007 purchased the Tribune Company, owner of the Los Angeles Times.
[17] After the takeover, Zell rated reporters by how many column inches they produced, relinquished the Los Angeles Times Magazine and other editorial publications to advertiser control — and laid off at least 1,000 employees.
[18] Forbes described the suit as putting "the fast-changing newspaper business on trial," noting "newspapers have been under siege since the technology bubble popped in the late 1990s, with problems ranging from declining circulation, advertiser consolidation, classified ads migrating online, rising newsprint costs, bloated debt structures and, yes, over-staffing.