Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

“Toyota: The Media Owe You an Apology”

Ed Wallace at Bloomberg Business Week tells why the Toyota sudden-acceleration debacle merely replays a long and sad history:

I don’t mean to single out CBS for criticism. Plenty of other media outlets share the blame. For 30 years they have treated us to Jeep, Suzuki, and Isuzu Trooper rollovers, Audi unintended acceleration, side-saddle gas tanks exploding, police cars catching on fire, Firestone tires blowing out, and then the Toyota case. And each time the media took the word of those with a vested financial interest in the outcome—and every time they got burned for doing so.

I wrote about this in my article “It Didn’t Start With Dateline NBC” and in the chapter “Trial Lawyer TV” of my book The Rule of Lawyers.

Plus: For comic relief, here’s a New York Times editorial claiming the findings “did nothing to dispel concerns” about safety. And welcome listeners of Ray Dunaway’s morning show on WTIC (Hartford).

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6 Comments

  • It’s never going to happen, just like when Audi took a hit years ago. My next car is going to be a Toyota, I’m done with GM cars. I’ve had more recall notices on my Saturn Ion than with any car I’ve owned (I’ve owned three prior to the Saturn).

    • By Rliyen

  • Agreed, it will never happen. The MSM rarely prints or broadcasts a correction, let alone an apology. Did the MSM apologize for publicizing bogus dangers of vaccinations? Did they apologize for hyping the Duke gang rape hoax? Has Dan Rather apologized to George W. Bush? Has the New York Times apologized to Senator McCain?

  • And they will not apologize, either, if Egypt becomes another Iran, despite their complicity and support of this wave of uprisings. After all, they just report what is going on, albeit thru an enormous amplifier.

    • By rxc

  • Like the novel Love Story (and of same literary quality): Being a reporter means never having to say “I’m sorry.”

    • By Wfjag

  • oh, MSM will do it again and again. Because they never say, I am sorry. and nobody cares.

    • By Doug

  • “Toyota’s a Victim, Not a Villain”…

    Eric Dezenhall in the Daily Beast on the unholy alliance that suffers no consequences for being wrong in badmouthing Toyota over sudden acceleration. See also Ed Wallace at Bloomberg BusinessWeek via Overlawyered…….