Fender still builds in Southern Cal

[Pilgrim]

This article is a lot more accurate about Fender than the one recently posted about Gibson...

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-made-in-california-fender-20141112-story.html#page=1

[Psycho Bass Guy]

This article is much better, but still manages to assert that NEW $500 Fender guitars are made in Corona:

Although corporate headquarters is in Scottsdale, Ariz., the company has chosen to keep Southern California the manufacturing center for its best guitars: Fenders with prices usually between $500 and $2,500 apiece

...and that Squiers are made in Mexico, which hasn't been the case in around 30 years.  Both of those are headscratchers, probably sourced from very outdated information. Still, journalism that lazy shouldn't be featured in the LA Times. It's not like 30 seconds on Google could not have corrected that, even for a non-musician.

Stepping back on my old soapbox, it's not the "liberal" media that the US needs to fear. It's the underpaid corporate PR "press" that rewards laziness and discourages critical and analytical engagement with its audience that has helped to make this nation stupider. It's incredibly depressing to see just how blatant and widespread it is and no wonder that the American public treats its press with such low regard. They should.  In related news, Kim Kardashian's photoshopped ass is trending. 

[Dave W]

The American Specials at $999 street price are the lowest priced MIA Fenders. And the lowest priced MIM is now $500.

Sometimes it's the press acting as PR for a company. In this case, though, I blame the writer. FMIC wouldn't have given him that pricing information.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I regard the press almost entirely as a PR entity, whether it writes about its own management directly or not.  The LA Times is owned by Tribune, who is second in "McNews" only to Gannett, my former employer. That facts, especially monetary ones, decades out of date were not proof-checked is no surprise. Newspapers are dead, vampircally subsisting on the blood of their parent company's broadcast divisions, and both are in business to entertain, not inform. The days of the 'noble crusading reporter' have not existed for almost two decades and the effect is the dumbing-down of this country where "news" is either openly slanted 'ediformation' or pablum fluff appealing to narcissistic celebrity-obsessed morons. That's why any nut with a blog or Twitter feed can hold equal or greater credibility to what were once respected news clearinghouses; they're both chasing the same folks.

  It's sad that a piece that short can be so wrong and still look like a masterpiece when the competition is ad copy. I can at least respect ads in their intent; they aren't lying about what they're doing and Gibson aside, usually much more clever.

[gearHed289]

Thank you PBG.

[Pilgrim]

I wasn't concerned about the errors in price quotations; perhaps I'm not that much of a detail guy, but I thought the article generally was on target.