TV Investigation
Leads To Massive Tire Recall

VOLUME 20, NUMBER 34                    AUGUST 21, 2000

Officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration believe that as many as 62 deaths and 100 injuries are linked to the tires. The agency has received more than 750 complaints about Firestone tires, many of which were generated after local news stories exposed the danger.
"We did this story in the face of what were fairly strong threats by Firestone and Ford," says Mike Devlin, Executive News Director of KHOU-TV.
"These are multi-national companies that have enormous clout and enormous resources to launch legal battles that can have an overwhelming chilling effect," says Devlin.

It wasn't just Firestone at the start. A huge automaker had a big stake in it.
"Ford was involved in this. Ford is a large advertiser for every TV station in the country," says Diaz, KHOU's top executive.
"When we received the letters, we went on the air and told viewers this was their response. We even put the Firestone letter on our Web site, so everyone could read it," he adds.
In spite of the pressure, the station executives and their investigators stood by their story, and continued to pursue it.
"The investigators are not new at this business. They are competent in how they approach stories, and we check them along the way. That is a comfort to me, as opposed to having some reporters who may not have been doing it as long, and who might take some short cuts," says Diaz.

"The bottom line was they had all of their facts right. They researched this story to death. It was their story that led to the recall," news director Devlin adds.

One victim was a reporter at another station. KTRK-TV reporter Stephen Gauvain was killed on the job, when an Explorer's tire went and he was thrown from the vehicle.

Werner contacted a lawyer in Houston who had six cases, all of which were bizarrely similar.
"They were all driving along, heard a funny sound, the car became hard to control, and before they knew it, it was leaving the road. Most of the time the car rolled and someone was injured or killed. Every case was a Ford Explorer with Firestone Radial ATX tires. Every case was an alleged tread separation," she says.

Her approach was to build a comprehensive report.
--- What was the national perspective?
--- How many accidents had there been?
--- What were the similarities?
--- Why is it happening?
--- What should be done to protect consumers?

The grieving survivors told Werner their stories in February.

Terrible crash.
A woman and her husband drove to Galveston in their Ford Explorer. She heard a pop. That was the tread coming off a Firestone Radial ATX that came with the vehicle.
The car began shaking and rolled. The woman told Werner, "I yelled at my husband, 'Hey baby wake up! The truck is shaking!'" When she woke up in a hospital, she learned that her husband was dead, and both her legs would have to be amputated below the knees.

Teenage victim.
A mother recalled the death of her 14-year-old daughter. The girl was killed riding to a Homecoming pep rally. A Firestone ATX came apart at highway speed. The Explorer she was riding in flipped three times, and she died.

Consumer advocate.
Jill Claybrook, head of the consumer watchdog group, Public Citizen, which is known for its oversight of the auto industry, called for an investigation, saying there was very, very strong evidence for a recall. She said in product safety cases, 30 deaths was a large number, and she was sure that wasn't all of them.

Industry expert.
A tire expert who testifies in lawsuits for plaintiffs said he is seeing more and more of these cases.

Former worker.
A former Firestone employee who worked at a North Carolina plant claimed the workers were under constant pressure to make their quotas. He claimed old ("dry") rubber was sometimes used instead of being discarded.

The station's first story ran on February 7. In the following days, the newsroom did several followups with people who called in.
"We had several hundred calls from people, a number of whom said it had happened to them, but no on was killed," says Werner.

On February 10, KHOU ran Ford and Firestone's responses, saying their products were safe, and claiming the TV station's report was misleading. Werner adds that she sent both companies extensive lists of questions prior to KHOU's story airing, but both declined interviews.

One reason that the public didn't know about the danger was the practice of "settle and seal."
When a lawsuit is settled out-of-court, it is often sealed under court order. "Even if you wanted to find out what had happened to other people, in many cases you couldn't. Or if you wanted to find what the company's internal documents said, you couldn't, because most cases are sealed," she explains.
"Our expert couldn't tell us about the documents he had seen that were under seal. But he could tell us that he is seeing more and more of these accidents. He was very, very concerned," she says.

The TV investigators also brought the story to the attention to Public Citizen. The head of Public Citizen was the former head of NHTSA. She felt is was very serious.
"She then called up NHTSA and started getting data from them," says Werner.

NHTSA has since called KHOU's report "a milestone."
"We ran four days of coverage, and we put NHTSA's address and phone number on our Web site, telling people NHTSA would like to hear from them, and to please send NHTSA their information. All these people started complaining," she says.
"The consumer advocates tell us the key thing about this was it was the first comprehensive story that really showed the nationwide scope to the problem, and that it totalled some numbers that were significant. The calls and complaints that were generated to NHTSA prompted them to open a defect investigation," she says.
Half of the complaints NHTSA had received were from Texas, and most were from February.

"Firestone had been denying there was a problem. Once we found out their biggest vendor was replacing the tires, other journalists felt more comfortable tackling the story," Raziq explains.

Raziq used the Internet to track down needed information from the foreign countries, including newspaper articles informational documents. Photojournalist Chris Henao is the third member of the Defenders team. He was particularly helpful in this instance because he speaks Spanish, and some recalls were in South America.
Henao was able to converse with the Spanish-speaking journalists and others, who told of similar crashes in their countries.

The KHOU investigators say no one knows what is happening scientifically to cause the accidents. What they had to look at was whether they had covered the information accurately and fairly. The answer was, "Yes."

Raziq adds that the problem requires further research by scientific organizations.
Some tires with tread separations were not high mileage tires. Some were early in the tire's life --- even in the first year.
Most of the people Werner interviewed were driving at 60 to 70 mph. Some of the vehicle's occupants made it through the accident. Others didn't.

Raziq says there were four key factors that made this investigation different from other stories that have been done on tire dangers.

1. The size and scope of the problem was revealed.
"The first thing we always do is find out how broad the story is," says Raziq.
"We asked the question: Is there a national problem here? There had been individual stories before. But we put together the national profile, and that's what created the impact," he says.

2. Consumer groups and government regulators were involved.
The turning point was getting the consumer group Public Citizen involved. "For reporters working on transportation stories, the number of incidents might seem like a low count to you, but in the world of safety engineering, it could be quite a high number. You must find someone who really knows safety statistics, and someone who doesn't have their own agenda," he says.

3. The Internet is indeed a great research tool.
"The Internet is your friend, especially for investigative reporters looking for international documents," says Raziq. The search engine he recommends is www.google.com.

4. Do your work, do it right, and then check it over again.
Make sure the details are right, that you have been fair and that you are clear in your language, Raziq says. You must be familiar with the scientific terms and what they mean.

In an editorial, The New York Times said had it not been for a Houston television report that "triggered a spate of complaints to the agency earlier this year, most drivers would still be unaware of their danger."

The station's general manager, Diaz, says a commitment to investigative reporting is a corporate value for Belo.
The culture of the company contributes to quality reporting.
"Belo has a good reputation for good journalism. It would have been difficult without their support. They didn't go crazy when we got the letters. They just wanted us to be certain we were going about it the right way, that we were being fair, and that we were providing both sides of the story," says Diaz.

"Having that support at the corporate level is very important," he adds.

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