Like most corporate giants, Toyota isn't all squeaky clean. Yet in their book "Toyota no Shotai" ("The True Colors of Toyota") published in Japanese in 2006, Hajime Yokota and Makoto Sataka catalog the Japanese media's timidity when it comes to covering the nation's top advertiser.

In May 2004, an accident resulting in death occurred in Toyota's Tsutsumi factory in the city of Toyota, Aichi Prefecture. Yet, as the book details, the mainstream media ignored the event for months, along with allegations made by the victim's father that it was the result of Toyota's emphasis on efficiency.

The book also references how, after a Toyota employee murdered his wife and child in 1992, editors in the mainstream media mostly ignored his connections to Toyota — instead referring to him as "a resident of the city of Toyota."