Tire Blowout Causes PR Blowup

I remember the first time I flew on a plane by myself. Although I was 13, a reeeaaal teenager, I was still terrified of A. the plane crashing and being without my mom to hold my hand on the way down, B. sitting next to a creepy stranger, and C. accidentally dosing off and drooling on that stranger’s shoulder.

Luckily neither A, B nor C were issues on this flight. When I arrived in Phoenix my Aunt Sharon and Uncle Jim swooped me up and told me about all the adventures we were about to embark upon.

During my last weekend in Arizona we took a little road trip up to their cabin in Flagstaff. After the weekend trip we drove back to Phoenix. I slept in the back of the Explorer sprawled out across both seats. Suddenly I heard a loud THUMP and the car seemed lower on one side. Then there were more thumping noises, at which point I popped up in my seat to see what was going on.

Uncle Jim pulled the Ford over to the shoulder of the highway to investigate. We realized that the tread had completely come off the Firestone tire. I asked Aunt Sharon how this happened. She attributed it to the heat. That day as the hot Arizona sun beat down on the red clay earth, Uncle Jim changed the tire as a state trooper helped, or rather, watched.



It never occurred to me at the time, but after I’d returned to Dallas I realized there might be a connection between our incident and the high profile Ford/Firestone blowout scandal. Our story was, thankfully, not nearly as severe as others. But there was definitely commonality.



In August 2000 Ford and Firestone “disputed claims that tire treads were separating from the tire core-leading to grisly, spectacular crashes,” according to Wikipedia.


According to one case study , the two companies made irreparable PR moves.

First of all the companies did not have a crisis management plan in place. So, apparently their idea of smoothing things over with the press was covering up safety defects. Bad idea? I think so. By being dishonest with the public and covering up information, hundreds of lives were lost because people were left in the dark.

The company also blamed customers for improper tire inflation. Like my mom always says, “The customer is always right!” Bad move Firestone, bad move. That’ll really put everyone who lost a family member to a blowout at ease. Not!

The unsuccessful communication strategies continue…

Ford and Firestone then began to publicly blame each other for the accidents. Real mature…

Lastly, neither party was quick to try and solve the problem. Finally Firestone recalled the tires, but was slow to alert the media. The public had no resource, no Web site, no hotline, nowhere to get information about the recall or how the company was going to address the issue.

After hearing all about this on TV I asked my Aunt Sharon if she ever reported our tire incident to Ford. She said, “No,” and that was the end of it. I’m glad our Ford/Firestone story didn’t have and alternate ending.

harry potten cont'd

also, i jsut looked at the website and the story BELOW the "dumbledore is gay" story is: Report: Plot to kill Israeli PM foiled

i think it is absurd that the real news comes after this.
how ironic!

fictional wizzards being gay is news according to CNN

Again CNN stoops to low levels of journalism with a story about how "Harry Potter" author JK Rowling revealed that the wizard Dumbledore is gay. I feel like this is not pertinent news at all. I think the only reason this story is on CNN’s main homepage is because Harry Potter is popular and this will attract attention to the the site. I honestly think CNN should be embarrassed to publish a story about such a trivial matter. I think this is just another form of structural bias. It is frustrating going to, what I want to believe is a respected new site, and getting bombarded with links about fictional wizards that are gay and the like.

urbandictionary.com is not news!

Once again, CNN.com is running a top news story about kid’s lingo
In the clip, the two anchors discuss new catch phrases that kids are learning and are now in urbandictionary.com
Here are some of the words:
Kraft singles – means dollar bills
Agnorant – means someone who is arrogant and ignorant
Anchor – means to wait
Bluetool – a person who wears their Bluetooth all the time, even when they’re not talking on the phone
Marinating – means hanging out
Multi-slacking - slacks on a lot of things at once
Breaking your crayons – getting upset
Leafve Britney alone – expression when trying to tell others to leave you alone

I think that with all of the things going on internationally and at home, this is what CNN decides to report? I think this is yet another lapse in judgment and I think that this takes away from serious journalism.

I think this is biased because this clip attracts attention (because let’s face it, reporting on some policy issues, isn’t that interesting).

who cares about prince william's girl friend? CNN does.

Another news story was about prince William and his girlfriend Kate. I think this again is not at ALL a newsworthy story, since it was about them walking out of a nightclub. There was absolutely no substance, no good visual images, no news, and it wasn’t really even timely. I think again this is a huge lapse in judgment of the professionals working at cnn who decided to post this as a top news story, instead of something more important like crime, politics, health care or the environment. It is frustrating to see CNN endorse this kind of yellow-journalism.

dont tazer me bro 10-6-07

I am on CNN.com right now and there is a HUGE box that you can click on to watch the “don’t tazer me bro” clip from September 18th when the student asked Kerry a question and then was handcuffed and tazered by police. Although the clip was interesting to watch, but no means is it current, relevant, or newsworthy. I think this is visual bias in its most basic sense. I also think this is structural bias, because I’m sure cnn’s website traffic has increased because people just want to click on that clip, instead of getting real news.

9-24-07 british reporter injects bias into german marriage story

Another story that I found bias in was a British story posted on CNN about a German politician who is proposing that marriages have a time limit. After seven years of marriage the couple can decide to extend their marriage or not. This is supposed to help decrease the divorce rate in Germany and help with financial struggle burdening the country.

But at the end of the story the reporter commented, in a condescending tone, that the German politician suggestion probably comes from experience because her second marriage ended in divorce and lasted seven years.

The reporter in this story also said, the politician has come up with a “radical solution.”

I think the reporter’s tone, comment on the politician’s personal life, and the comment about the “radical” proposal are all injections of bias into the story that do influence the viewer. If I were unaware of these biases, I would have a negative feeling towards this German politician and her policy, because of this reporter’s story.