Toyota

In Journalism, Scaremongering Pays — Or, Is Ethical Journalism an Oxymoron?

by Hans Bader on June 17, 2011 · 1 comment

in Legal, Mobility, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Sanctimony

As legal commentator Ted Frank notes, ABC was rewarded for deliberate scaremongering and deceptive reporting that created needless fear and anxiety among Toyota owners with a coveted journalism award: “Brian Ross of ABC News repeatedly used footage of Sean Kane criticizing Toyota over sudden acceleration without telling viewers that Kane was being paid by plaintiffs’ attorneys pushing bogus product liability claims; he also faked footage of a tachometer speeding out of control to push the “deadly Toyota” meme. All of these scare tactics and hysteria turned out to be utterly false, and refuted by a NASA/NHTSA report finding nothing wrong with the electronics in the automobile. Ross and ABC News haven’t retracted their scare-tactic stories or even apologized, much less slunk off in disgrace. Rather, ABC News submitted Ross’s quack reports for an Edward R. Murrow Award — and got the award, doubling the scandal.”

At Gawker, John Cook calls Ross “America’s Wrongest Reporter” for “his coverage of the Toyota unintended acceleration story,” which had the effect of needlessly “Fostering Global Panic Based on” falsehoods:

“Ross, you will recall, was one of the driving forces behind the Runaway Toyota Panic of ’10, which was later determined by NASA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to have been largely the result of idiots stepping on the accelerator when they intended to step on the brake, and of other idiots talking about it on TV. Ross was one of those idiots. For some reason, ABC News submitted four of Ross’ Toyota reports to the Radio Television Digital News Association for award consideration.  One report they didn’t submit was the one where Gawker caught Ross staging footage to make it seem like a Toyota was accelerating out of control when it was in fact parked with the emergency brake on, doors open, and someone stepping on the gas … In two of the winning reports, Ross quoted safety expert Sean Kane criticizing Toyota and insisting that there were cases of unintended acceleration that “couldn’t be explained by floormats,” which Toyota had recalled in 2009 after some mats became stuck under gas pedals. What he didn’t report was that Kane was being paid by plaintiff’s attorneys who were suing Toyota over unintended acceleration cases, and so had a financial incentive to argue that there was more to the Runaway Toyota scare than just floormats … [Kane's] position—that electronics were involved—was later eviscerated by the NASA/NHTSA report, which found “no electronic flaws in Toyota vehicles capable of producing the large throttle openings required to create dangerous high-speed unintended acceleration incidents.”

As Gawker notes, Ross has a “documented history of shamelessly hyping cooked stories” stretching back to “the 2001 anthrax attacks.”

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Even Liberal Washington Post Casts Doubt on Auto Bailouts

by Hans Bader on June 3, 2011

in Bailout Watch, Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment

“Only 16 percent of executives in the auto industry” support the Chrysler bailout, according to the Washington Post’s editorial today. I think the bailout was a bad idea, for the reasons I list in my own commentary at this link, where I also chronicle how the Obama administration has deceived the public about the cost and consequences of the bailouts, and disseminated misleading claims by GM about allegedly repaying taxpayers.

As the Washington Post editorial board, which has not endorsed a Republican for president since 1952, noted, the bailout sent a harmful “message” that the automakers are “too big to fail.” And the bailouts might not have been necessary to save most auto jobs, since even “If GM and Chrysler had failed, their profitable parts would, eventually, have been bought up and put to work by others … expanding production and hiring workers in the process. Government dollars spent propping up the two automakers might have created jobs elsewhere.”

Even if a bailout had been a good idea, the Obama administration did not handle its execution well. As the Post notes, it is questionable whether having “decided to aid the industry, the administration chose the best way of doing so. The administration … did not press the United Auto Workers, its political ally, for even deeper labor cost reductions” needed to maximize the automakers’ long-run chances of survival. Moreover, bailing out Chrysler was harmful to GM, since “propping up Chrysler would saddle GM with additional competition, thus complicating survival for the larger, stronger company.”

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Temporarily Buoyed by Japanese Earthquake, General Motors Looks for Profit Overseas

by Hans Bader on May 14, 2011

in Bailout Watch, Economy, International, Trade

“GM sees China as a road to profit,” reports the Washington Post today. “GM last year sold more cars in China than in the United States,” ranging from “high-end Buicks” to “low-end Chevrolets.” It’s good that GM is expanding its markets overseas, because its current share of the U.S. auto market may not last.

Even GM’s own shareholders seem to recognize that, and the fact that its recent profits may only be temporary. As Mickey Kaus noted recently in the Daily Caller, General Motors’ “sales and prices are up recently in part only because competing Japanese car suppliers have been crippled by the earthquake and tsunami. GM’s stock fell today and is still below the initial IPO price” (that is, below the price of the stock when it was sold to shareholders by the U.S. government).

Before that, GM’s finances were temporarily buoyed by bad PR regarding Toyota’s alleged safety defects in its cars, which turned out to be largely bogus. (The Toyota crashes turned out to have been caused by driver error, not manufacturing defects).

These setbacks for Toyota temporarily drove buyers away from Toyota to GM, artificially propping up GM’s profitability. But devastating earthquakes like the one that hit Japan occur there only once or twice a century, and can’t keep GM profitable in the long-run.

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Rationality and the Taping of Moving Boxes

by Michael Fumento on March 9, 2011

in Odds & Ends

Post image for Rationality and the Taping of Moving Boxes

I have long been fascinated by both aberrational and irrational human behavior, at least since I documented a mass outbreak of hysteria regarding the so-called “heterosexual AIDS explosion” that wasn’t GOING to take place but allegedly already had.

More recently, I documented that the whole Toyota flap was mass sociogenic hysteria in the same category of the missing children and Satanic abuse in the day care centers hysteria. This notwithstanding that I’ve been unable to find a single publication that’s willing to print what I show is clearly obvious. Editors don’t think anybody is interested that this is America’s greatest mass hysteria in many years, and that such mass hysterias usually cause tremendous and lasting damage. And maybe they’re right.

Mind, “irrational” and “aberrational” are by no means synonymous. Often enough, irrationality rules the day and it’s rationality that is aberrational.

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Now! In Black and White, the Toyota Hysteria Exemplified!

by Michael Fumento on November 18, 2010

in Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Sanctimony

It’s not “live!” It’s not even “In color!” And there’s no sound. But it’s quite stunning.

A surveillance video  posted by Fox Chicago News Online shows a 2006 Toyota Corolla backing out of a parking space and striking a car. The Corolla then shoots forward and slams into another vehicle, knocking it aside. Next the car swerves, presumably in an effort to avoid a strip mall, and crashes into a brick wall. The driver, Leon Przybylowski, died of his injuries later that day.

As I write in my new Forbes.com piece, “In Black and White, the Toyota Hysteria Exemplified,” the family is now suing Toyota. They insist the video supports their claim that Przybylowski, as the newscaster put it, was “yet another victim of sudden unintended acceleration.” Their lawyer says it was another victim of “across the board” and “systematic failure” on the part of Toyota. Both, huh?

Actually, the incident is almost a perfect example of why Toyota SUA accidents really happen, comprising as it does:

  • Elderly drivers
  • Parking lots
  • A sensationalist media
  • Trial lawyers
  • Misconceptions about how cars work generally and throttles and brakes specifically
  • Ignorance, willful or otherwise, of solid data and substitution with presumptions, unwarranted allegations, and emotion

Oh, and gremlins.

There’s no systematic failure with Toyotas. Prior to the hysteria outbreak, only three sudden acceleration complaints were filed with NHTSA regarding 380,000 Toyota Corollas model year 2006. Rather that failure has been that of the media in utterly failing to convey the importance of the above factors.

No, NHTSA didn’t blame all Toyota’s troubles on driver error

by Michael Fumento on July 16, 2010

in Regulation

I can’t count how many people sent me items about how NHTSA says the whole Toyota Tempest has now been determined by the government to have been driver error. Hallelujah! Case closed!

Wrong.

The ruckus began with a Wall Street Journal piece with the unfortunately ambiguous titles: “Crash Data Suggest Driver Error in Toyota Accidents” and “Early Tests Pin Toyota Accidents on Drivers.”

It stated:

The U.S. Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of data recorders from Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles involved in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration and found that the throttles were wide open and the brakes weren’t engaged at the time of the crash, people familiar with the findings said. The early results suggest that some drivers who said their Toyotas and Lexuses surged out of control were mistakenly flooring the accelerator when they intended to jam on the brakes.

Of course they found that. I wrote about the mistaken pedal issue months ago. It’s been know about since the 1980s and especially plagues the elderly.

More important was the Journal’s quote from scientist with the National Academy of Sciences, which has been studying the problem. “‘In spite of our investigations, we have not actually been able yet to find a defect’ in electronic throttle-control systems.”

And they never will. Even though that’s the pet theory of the media and trial lawyers, there’s nothing wrong with Toyota’s electronic throttles.

But consider this statistic:

In the first half of last year, about 100 people reported sudden unintended acceleration in Toyotas. In the first half of this year, it was about 5,000. Do you think that’s all “driver error,” much less all those people stomping the wrong pedal all of the sudden?

Stay tuned!

“A Good Friday to Remember,” my essay in NRO

by Michael Fumento on April 2, 2010

in Odds & Ends

Good Friday, April 17, 1992: I’d just started a great job at Investor’s Business Daily in Los Angeles, and two weeks earlier I’d purchased the car of my dreams, a beautiful, blue Toyota MR2 Turbo. To me, at least, it looked like a small Ferrari. It was fast and sleek. I was taking my girlfriend, Mary, who had just recently followed me out from Denver, where we’d met, to see a city she’d always dreamed of visiting: San Francisco.

But we were in no hurry, and I wanted her to see the majestic beauty of the central California coastline. That meant taking the Pacific Coast Highway. Cut into the cliffs and filled with sharp, winding turns, it can make for a white-knuckle ride in many parts. As the driver, you take quick glances at the scenery and then shoot your eyes back to the road. A front-page article in the Monterey County Herald would later be aptly titled “The Beauty and Danger of Highway 1.” An accompanying piece: “Rocks and Surf below Highway Become Tomb for Some.”

Those articles would be about us.

My essay “A Good Friday to Remember” isn’t my usual fare, but judging from my email so far it’s a powerful piece. It will make even a skeptic – somebody like me – think about the possibility of miracles.

CDC dumping swine flu vaccine – after media dumped the truth

by Michael Fumento on April 2, 2010 · 2 comments

in Health and Illness

What do you get from a phony flu scare? Among other things, lots of worthless vaccine.

“Despite months of dire warnings and millions in taxpayer dollars, less than half of the 229 million doses of H1N1 vaccine the government bought to fight the pandemic have been administered – leaving an estimated 71.5 million doses that must be discarded if they are not used before they expire.” So reports the Washington Post‘s Rob Stein.

Actually, it’s billions of dollars but who’s counting? And actually Rob Stein contributed to all this with such article ledes as: “Swine flu could infect half the U.S. population this fall and winter, hospitalizing up to 1.8 million people and causing as many as 90,000 deaths – more than double the number that occur in an average flu season, according to an estimate from a presidential panel released Monday.”

Of course, who knew better back then in August? Well, I did. Just days later in the Philadelphia Inquirer I noted statistics showing swine flu to be vastly milder than seasonal flu and said swine flu appears to be replacing the current seasonal H1N1 virus. Therefore, as one former WHO epidemiologist told me, “My bet is that the coming [U.S.] season will not be too severe – at or below that of a usual flu season.”

And indeed, the latest CDC estimate, with the flu almost gone, is that 12,000 Americans have died this season as opposed to the typical 36,000. And as I’ve written, data from other countries indicate the CDC estimates are almost certainly far too high. Did I have access to any information the Washington Post didn’t? Or for that matter The New York Times or Wall Street Journal or USA Today and on and on? Obviously not.

Of course, now the media have moved on to a new hysteria: “Runaway Killer Toyotas.” And they’re playing the same game. Why was I the one who exposed the “runaway Prius” hoax? Did I have access to any information the rest of the media did not?

And yet they’re still not telling the truth about the hoax.

Four days after my piece appeared, the Washington Post declared driver James “Sikes said he tried to free his gas pedal with his hand but did not say whether he put the car in neutral.” As I had noted he repeatedly said he did not try to put the car in neutral, including at a press conference available on the Web and in a CNN interview on the Web. And importantly, the reasons he gave showed beyond any doubt he was lying. That’s why it’s important to the Post that its readers not know that.

The media still pursue stories to be sure. But if you believe they place much value on pursuit of the truth, might I inquire as to the address of the rock under which you’ve been living?

“How a pit bull is like a Prius,” my Philly Inquirer article today

by Michael Fumento on March 31, 2010

in Nanny State, Odds & Ends, Regulation

What could pit bulls possibly have in common with Toyotas? Pit bulls, after all, tend to be smaller and furrier. And whatever you do, never try to wash and wax a pit bull.

Still, there is a connection. Both have been at the center of “misinformation cascades,” in which false “facts” roll downhill until they become avalanches, sweeping away everything in their path.

During the 1970s and early ’80s, pit bulls maimed about 80 people a year and killed about seven. That compares to about 58 lightning deaths a year. Then, as now, serious dog attacks made only the local papers. But in 1986, the national networks aired spectacular footage of a pit bull attacking an animal-control officer. Suddenly, pit bulls had their incisors in the national consciousness.

And less than a year ago, Toyotas were Consumer Reports readers most highly rated cars with a terrific safety record. And now, seemingly, they’re going nuts. Suddenly accelerating down freeways, into buildings, into walls. As you’ll see in my Philadelphia Inquirer piece, actually pit bulls have a lot in common with Toyotas.

But with a pit bull, don’t kick the tires!

“Are some reporters lying in their Toyota coverage?” my Canadian Free Press article

by Michael Fumento on March 30, 2010

in Nanny State, Regulation

I’ve shown clearly that reporters are acting with reckless disregard for the truth in the Toyota sudden acceleration feeding frenzy since my Los Angeles Times article “Toyota Hysteria” on March 9. And no article showed that more than my Forbes.com expose, “The Toyota Hybrid Horror Hoax,” of March 12.

But are some reporters outright lying? One presumes so out of so large a number; but the charge is generally hard to prove because it requires showing a state of mind. You have to catch the reporter making clearly contradictory statements or show he clearly knew a set of facts and presented them otherwise – or failed to present them otherwise.

That the person “Should have known better” isn’t enough. With that, I present my letters exchange with the San Jose Mercury News and specifically its automobile writer, Gary Richards in this Canadian Free Press article. You can draw your own conclusions.

The inset image shows the 2008 Prius shift knob of which Richards claims,  “Some [of his emailers] say they are looking at the dash and there it appears you should shift the lever to go into neutral UP and not left (which is the correct way).” Really?

But the real problem is that Prius driver James Sikes stated repeatedly and explicitly that he never even tried to shift at all. Which makes everything Richards say about the alleged difficulty of shifting the Prius gears something of a red herring, doesn’t it?

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