Archive for the &;ABC-News&; Category

Toyota ScapegoatingSupplier?

February 10, 2010

Is Goliath-sized Toyota scapegoating their David-sized supplier, CTS Corp? It&;s hard to count the ways Toyota has turned what should have been a simple product recall (several years ago) into a snowballing PR disaster.  Now it appears they are scapegoating a supplier&;in addition to slow disclosure, stonewalling investigators, denial, failure to get out in front of the issue, non-availability of corporate leadership, uncoordinated and negative actions by stakeholders (the dealership attack on just one of the messengers, ABC News), to name a few. The angry dealers might also want to cancel their subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal.  In addition to noting Congress doesn&;t buy Toyota&;s pedal and floormat fix, the Journal is questioning Toyota&;s putting the blame on CTS Corp.  The WSJ checked with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, who confirmed that CTS-built gas pedals get stuck only at low speed and aren&;t &;believed to make cars accelerate out of control.&;  According to CTS, the sticking pedals have occured in fewer than 20 cases and have never been linked to any accidents. Many suspect possible software issues with the electronic control system in the vehicles.  Toyota may not even know what the problem is.   Whatever the real fix is, blaming a supplier only makes Toyota look worse.

Tags:Toyota, Toyota-disaster, Toyota-public-relations-disaster, Toyota-recall Posted in ABC-News, Automobiles, Automotive-industry, Public Relations, public-relations-disaster | 1 Comment &;

ABC News Hangs Tough onToyota

February 10, 2010

Bravo to ABC News, hanging tough in the face of Toyota&;s shameful attempt to intimidate, control coverage and &;punish&; ABC by pulling their advertising.  Instead, ABC News went full throttle (sorry) on Toyota again, running an exclusive interview with Dimitrios Biller today.  Biller worked as managing counsel for Toyota&;s American operations from 2003 to 2007.  His comments? &;You have to understand that Toyota in Japan does not have any respect for our legal system. They did not have any respect for our laws.&;  Unhappy ex-employee? Sure, but one who says the company made a practice of not revealing safety issues.   &;They were hiding evidence, concealing evidence, destroying evidence, obstructing justice,&; said Biller. The Toyota recall(s)&;and coverup&;is a big story.  It&;s not just how many Toyota owners there are in the United States.  How many vulnerable children travel in Toyotas every day?  How many of us shares the road with a Toyota at any given time?  ABC is right to stick with this story like a terrier cornering a rat.  And when Toyota finally puts its house in order, the advertisers will come back to ABC.

Tags:ABC-News, Toyota, Toyota-dealers, Toyota-public-relations-disaster, Toyota-recall Posted in ABC-News, Advertising, Automobiles, Automotive-industry, public-relations-disaster | 2 Comments &;

Toyota Dealers Compound Public RelationsDisaster

February 9, 2010

News flash: Toyota doesn&;t know what they&;re doing.  And apparently, not just in terms  of making safe cars, but in terms of communicating. If the company&;s slow disclosure, foot-dragging, lack of responsiveness and weak apologies aren&;t bad enough, Toyota dealers are engaged in classic blame-the-messenger behavior, pulling ads from ABC, which has displayed a rare pair in fully covering the crisis.  The 173 Southern dealers in five states cited &;excessive coverage of the Toyota issues.&; Telling, Marcia Owens-Reder, senior vice-president at 22Squared, the Atlanta advertising agency that handles the account for Southeast Toyota, &;tried&; to talk the dealers out of the move, but they insisted on &;punishing&; ABC for their own company&;s problems.  This is a textbook example of when you&;re in a hole, keep digging with a backhoe.  Just as bad: Jack Fitzgerald, a Washington, DC, dealer, told the AP, &;I can&;t wait for the village idiot to dump his Toyota for nothing. I can certainly make money on it.&; Good to see that the classic American car dealer, far from being a dying breed, is still providing the ethical service that has long distinguished them.

Tags:ABC-News, Toyota-dealers, Toyota-disaster, Toyota-Prius, Toyota-public-relations-disaster, Toyota-recall Posted in ABC-News, Automobiles, Automotive-industry, public-relations-disaster | 3 Comments &;

ABC News Finds Ft. Hood KillerCaptivating

November 9, 2009

Doesn&;t anybody around here understand writing or usage?  I know I sound like grammarian schoolmarm, but ABC&;s story on &;alleged&; mass murderer Major Nidal Malik Hasan was even more poorly written than usual.  The first sentence reads: &;Days after a mass shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Killeen, Texas, details of the gunman&;s life have captivated millions looking for motives behind Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan&;s murderous rampage.&; Yes, captivating.  Not. To captivate means to capture attention in a positive way, as in &;Miley Cyrus captivated her tween audience.&;  Captivating=delightful. What&;s next for ABC&;s incompetent news writers?  Why not &;the antics of the terrorist murderer captivated the public&;s attention&;?

Tags:ABC, death-of-journalism, news-incompetence, Nidal-Malik-Hasan, terrorism Posted in ABC-News, copyediting | Leave a Comment &;

President Bush: Not Funny, NotCovered

September 7, 2007

Did you know President Bush spoke to a key economic summit at the Australian Opera House in Sydney yesterday?  Did you know he launched a few of his patented gaffes? Money quote: &;He&;d only reached the third sentence of Friday&;s speech to business leaders, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, when he committed his first gaffe. &;Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit,&; Bush said to Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Oops. That would be APEC, the annual meeting of leaders from 21 Pacific Rim nations, not OPEC, the cartel of 12 major oil producers. Bush quickly corrected himself. &;APEC summit,&; he said forcefully, joking that Howard had invited him to the OPEC summit next year (for the record, an impossibility, since neither Australia nor the U.S. are OPEC members). The president&;s next goof went uncorrected — by him anyway. Talking about Howard&;s visit to Iraq last year to thank his country&;s soldiers serving there, Bush called them &;Austrian troops.&; You wouldn&;t have learned this from CNN.COM, FOXNEWS.COM, or MSNBC.COM,  who are mostly concerned with the mother of a British 3-year old questioned in the girl&;s disappearance,  an upcoming &;happy anniversary of September 11&; message from a newly-dyed (and undead) Osama Bin Ladin (hat tip to Andrew Sullivan), and nude pictures of someone named Vanessa Hudgins from High School Musical appearing on the Web.  (To their credit, ABCNEWS did run something on Bush&;s confrontation with a Korean leader.) Bush fatigue is palpable&;but our media is doing a pathetic job of covering the President of the United States.

Posted in ABC-News, Andrew-Sullivan, CNN, Fox-News, MSNBC, President-Bush | Leave a Comment &;

Journalism andProstitution

May 11, 2007

I mean literally.   Hookers from Heidi Fleiss to Deborah Paltrey are an irresistable temptation for crusading journalists looking for exploitation, sanctimony and hypocrisy. All the other news outlets were jealous over ABC&;s apparent ownership of the Deborah Palfrey escort service story, and were quick to attack when the much-teased story fizzled out.  Even a former stripper piled on.  Howard Kurtz led Sunday&;s Reliable Sources with &;The Network and the Madam.&; Almost breathless, he said &;ABC&;s Brian Ross names some of the clients of Deborah Jean Palfrey&;s Washington escort service&;but only a few&;Did ABC show restraint, or invade the men&;s privacy and indulge in a tawdry tale for sweeps week?” Kurtz and his guests concluded it was all a tease.  They showed tape of Ross on 20/20 looking disappointed that even with 46 pounds of phone records, &;We couldn&;t find any members of Congress or White House staffers.  Most of these people just aren&;t newsworthy.&; &;There was pandering in both the legal sense and the media sense,&; said Kurtz guest Mark Feldstein, a professor of journalism at George Washington.  &;News media is there to make a profit.  Sex sells.  The very first newspaper in the U.S. did a sexpose in 1690 and got shut down very soon thereafter.” Yes, sex sells in the media (just ask Paris) but it&;s not all a winking, laughing matter. State Department official Randall Tobias’ career is over, and the scandal may already have help kill someone.  

Posted in ABC-News, Journalism, Sex and Society, Television | Leave a Comment &;