During a November 1992 broadcast, NBC Dateline, at the time an American news weekly show, producers Jeff Diamond, David Rummel, and Robert Read along with reporter Michele Gillen showed a Chevy truck exploding into flames after a vehicle crashed into the side of the truck.

There was just a small problem with their reporting. NBC Dateline rigged the truck to start on fire, collision or no collision resulting in their video proving nothing. Dateline did this to save money. Chevy trucks built from 1973 to 1987 had side wall gas tanks placed outside of the frame rails and they really did start on fire during a side impact with another vehicle or another object. Just not every time. There was no way to tell how many trucks NBC would have to smash before they got one to explode into flames, so they took a short cut and put an incendiary device into the gas cap area of the truck to ensure a fire.

At the time General Motors was defending itself against thousands of lawsuits over its gas tanks starting on fire during collisions. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, found that 19% of all side impacts involving these trucks leaked fuel which led to excessive number of explosions and fires. The NHTSA ordered GM to recall six million trucks to fix the problem. GM refused but they did sue NBC for defamation.

Due to the journalistic malpractice Dateline’s ratings sank, executive producer Jeff Diamond, senior producer David Rummel, segment producer Robert Read, and reporter Michele Gillen were all fired and Michael Gartner, president of NBC News at the time resigned. Adding further insult to injury, NBC anchors Jane Pauley and Stone Phillips broadcast a three-minute apology as part of its settlement with GM.

Source: Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Fox News, The New York Times, MotorBiscuit. Graphic: Dateline Video.