Tops New 2: REVISED

On Friday Toyota extends its recall to 2010 Tacoma trucks in North America. The automaker said "that the front shaft in a small production run of pickups may include a component that developed cracks during the manufacturing process. As the vehicles are used, the cracks could lead to 'the separation of the drive shaft at the joint portion.'" The inspection of the cars and the fixing will be done at no cost to the customer. Currently, there is a 8 million car recall globally for Toyota cars. Toyota will justify before U.S. congressional committees if required, but so far only U.S president of Toyota, Yoshimi Inaba, has been asked to justify.

I had heard about the previous recalls in my PR 99 class, but as I was looking up what updates have happened I came across this story. I think this story is important because this is a really crucial time for Toyota. Toyota has always been a name that has been synonymous with reliability and for the first time is really under fire. I think that it is important for people like myself, who are PR majors, to really examine what's going on here because obviously with how out of control it has gotten there is huge lack of personal accountability and PR savvy at Toyota.

I think the news values it really encompasses is impact, immediacy, and prominence. I think that the impact of this event is that many people are going to be left driving unsafe cars until all of the current cars that are problematic are fixed. The last people want to feel is unsafe in the form of transportation most people rely on. The immediacy of this situation is that with every passing day it seems that hole Toyota is in growing deeper. People are hanging on to their seat with each new recall announcement. Lastly, Toyota has been a staple of reliability and safety for generations and now that is up in smoke. The name of the company is temporarily, if not permanently tarnished.