ABC News has called into question its reporting on acceleration problems with Toyota vehicles.
The network's handling of a February 22 "World News" story about potential problems with computer systems in Toyotas has created ethical questions and intensified bitter feelings the besieged automaker already had toward ABC.
ABC has admitted to a misjudgment and swapped out the brief dashboard video in its report, which continues to be available online.
Its story illustrated a report by David Gilbert, a Southern Illinois University professor who suggested that a design flaw in Toyotas might leave a short-circuit that could cause sudden acceleration undetected by the car's computer system.
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Correspondent Brian Ross' "World News" report showed him driving a Toyota with Gilbert that was rigged to quickly accelerate. Even though he knew it was coming, Ross said the incident left him shaken, and he had a hard time getting the car to come to a stop.
Briefly during the drive, ABC cut to a picture of a tachometer with the needle zooming forward. The impression was that the tachometer was documenting the ride Ross was taking. Instead, that picture was taken from a separate instance where a short-circuit was induced in a parked car.
ABC said that editing was done because it was impossible to get a good picture of the tachometer while the car was moving because the camera was shaking. The camera shot was steady when it was taken in a parked car.
"The tachometer showed the same thing every time," said ABC News spokeswoman Emily Lenzner.
Toyota spokesperson John Hanson disputes that, saying tachometers react much more dramatically when short-circuits happen in a parked car than in a car that is moving. Tachometers measure engine speed.
It all points to problems that are created when visual journalists try to alter reality in order to get a better picture.
"Anytime you give the audience any reason to doubt the honesty of the piece, that's a serious problem," said Charlotte Grimes, a Syracuse University journalism professor who specialises in ethical issues.
"Do they honestly think that a company like Toyota, with all the resources that it has, would not be looking at these things?" Grimes asked.
Toyota recognised the differences right away: the shot showed the car's speedometer was at zero, the parking brake was on and no one was using the seat belts - while Ross wore one on the test drive, Hanson said. Online discussion of the differences began almost immediately, and the Web site Gawker.com wrote about it last week.
ABC edited the online version of its story shortly after that story appeared and wrote a note on its Web site explaining why.
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