Donald W. Blohowiak, author of “No Comment! An Executive Guide to the News Media”, has invaluable advice for Volkswagen:
“Reveal bad news in total. The slow drip, drip, drip of damaging facts piques public interest and surrounds the story in an air of drama unfolding. Revealing all there is to tell right off the bat allows the media to tell everything in one shot. The resulting bang may be deafening for a brief moment, but then it’s in one ear, out the other, and quickly forgotten in the noise from other news events.”
That advice is being ignored in Wolfsburg. Volkswagen’s news machine is set to a fast and steady drip of no good. Last week, it was made public that Volkswagen is also cheating with CO2 emissions, and that the scandal is not limited to diesel engines. When that was revealed, it was said that the data were falsified the old-fashioned way, and that someone simply reported wrong numbers to the authorities.
Not true, as it turns out once again.
Yesterday, Volkswagen admitted that actual emission tests were fudged, either by manipulating the test routine, or by submitting doctored vehicles. Writes the Wolfsburger Allgemeine, Volkswagen’s hometown paper:
“Once more, technical tricks make sure that VW cars don’t keep their written and officially approved promises.”
According to the paper, the new series of bogus emission tests gives “the emission scandal a whole new dimension.” As it had been whispered all along, this is not just a diesel scandal, it is a scandal engulfing all of Volkswagen. If it says Volkswagen on it, there may be a defeat device in it.
