MediaLog 6: GM Dodges Harsher Penalties

The conclusion of a criminal investigation surrounding the car manufacturer, General Motors, is set to be released Thursday, and the financial penalties are said to fall just short of $1 billion. The criminal investigation, which was held by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and federal prosecutors in Manhattan, looked into a claim which accused General Motors of the admission of facts about defects involved in their products. According to the article, the defects involved included “defective ignition switches that could unexpectedly turn off, cutting power to the engine and disabling power steering, power brakes and airbags”, and played a role in 124 deaths.

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Although the financial penalty is estimated to be around $1 billion, many people – including executives at General Motors – thought the penalties would be much worse. Instead of pleading guilty to a crime, General Motors only had to sign a “deferred-prosecution agreement”. In addition, no executives or employees of the company are expected to be indicted or face individual charges, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded in their report that, “the problems stemmed from a collective failure of the automaker”.

I believe this news coverage of General Motors to be mainly positive. Although the article is does go in to the criminal investigation that was being held against the company, the overall message is the idea that the outcome and penalties could have been worse. The audience most impacted by this story is the consumer audience of General Motors and, in turn, General Motors, itself. Although many consumers are probably worried about the safety of General Motor products, the company still remains one of the largest monopolies in their industry. With the minimal penalties that they received (in comparison to other car companies in the past), they should be able to bounce back relatively quickly.

As a PR representative for General Motors, I would encourage the company to come forth and apologize for their emission of facts to the public, and explain their reasoning (if any) for doing so. I would also encourage them to make a statement taking full responsibility for the problem and outline what they are going to do in order to counteract their mistake. I believe that General Motors can take a positive spin off of the report being released, pointing out the fact that no executives are being indicted and pushing the idea that it was not a malicious act done by one person, but rather a general “incident”.

I do not believe that this news release was driven my a media pitch, because it shows both the negatives and positives of the situation, and remains largely unbiased.

Medium: Print

Vehicle: Newspaper, New York Times

Website (if applicable): http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/17/business/prosecutors-said-to-be-near-a-criminal-settlement-with-gm.html?ref=business

Reporters/writers: Ben Protess and Danielle Ivory

Date: September 17, 2015

Headline: “U.S. Said to Have Settled with G.M. Over Deadly Defects”

Company/business involved: General Motor consumers, General Motors, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Your client: General Motors

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