Dateline San Diego: Home of wife-swapping dead-beat sue-happy con artists, debtors, and environmentalists --

Toyota has played the media like a cheap piano with a series of utterly ridiculous P.R. stunts that exploit some ludicrous stereotypes about California consumers - namely, that most of us are lawsuit crazed deadbeat wife-swapping environmentalists who can't pay our bills. 

With a few notable exceptions (i.e. Channel Ten ) Most of the mainstream media is gobbling up Toyota's spoon fed publicity pablum as if their advertising revenue depends on it. 

Oh, wait a minute, their ad revenue does depend on it.  After the infamous San Diego incident, Toyota stepped up its advertising and PR budget to $1 billion a year ... which maybe, just maybe, is why the media has so eagerly "digested" Toyota's publicity and passed it on to you as news.

Bon Appetit!

 You can read our lengthy critique of Toyota's five-pronged publicity assault here, at UCAN's fueltracker.com, but Toyota's strategy is simple: get the media to portray every Toyota driver in Southern California as a crazy wife-swapping environmentalist. 

So far, it seems to be working.

Which, by the way,  is one of the reasons UCAN has initiated its New Media Rights Project. NMR's operating philosophy is to empower ordinary citizens with the expertise and equipment that they need to strategically deploy power of the Internet's new media. NMR is about putting the power of free speech and technology into the hands of people like you. Toyota may have all the money and the mainstream media, but you have the freedom and ability to express your opinions on a level playing field.

What's your opinion? You can publish your own opinions and comments on this article or any other article on the UCAN Web site by using the form below.

Why do we do it?   Because this is New Media that isn't contolled, paid for, or edited, by Toyota.

Enough said.