Here's an article about how NBC news faked a story about exploding gas tank on GM pickups. The article is from a law school ethics course. NBC's "news source" rigged model rocket engines to the gas tanks, and electrically ignited the rocket engines a few milliseconds BEFORE the impact with another test vehicle. Big boom, giant flames, great video - and nothing close to the real world.
In the real world, about 1 in 4000 collisions with trucks with this style fuel tank will start a fire. The fuel tanks are about 2 1/2 feet or more away from the nearest part of the truck cab door, which provides some additional driver safety, assuming the driver isn't too trunk to get out quickly...
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Dateline NBC
Notable ethical incident
Probably the most publicized example of fake news in recent times is the case of NBC's faking a crash test in a story about trucks made by General Motors. The story, labeled "Waiting to Explode?," first appeared on "Dateline" which was then cited as the source for the "news" story on NBC and other networks. In explicit video, NBC "proved" that GM trucks with gasoline tanks mounted outside the trucks' underframe are prone to explosion when hit from the side. In the NBC demonstration video, a GM truck burst into flames after being hit from the side. A man identified as Byron Bloch, safety consultant, went on the air and described the fire as a "holocaust." NBC reporter Michele Gillen claimed that the crash had punctured a hole in the gasoline tank. No mention was made of the fact that NBC had attached toy-rocket engines to the truck's fuel tank and then detonated the rockets by remote control at the moment of impact. Nevertheless, even when this fact became known, Michael Gartner, president of NBC at the time, said: "The segment that was broadcast on 'Dateline' NBC was fair and accurate." Harold Pearce, GM's executive vice-president and general counsel, didn't think so. He called the NBC program "outrageous misrepresentation and conscious deception."
The truth about the fake news came about due to the investigative journalism of Pete W. Pesterre, editor of Popular Hot Rodding magazine, and GM itself. For reasons unrelated to the faking of the story, Pesterre had criticized the "Dateline" show in an editorial. A reader called him and told him of a firefighter, fire chief Glen R. Bailey Jr., who was at the scene and thought the test was rigged. GM hired its own investigators who asked NBC to let them look at the trucks used in the tests. NBC refused. The investigators checked 22 junkyards before they found the trucks, but the fuel tanks were missing. Bruce Enz, who calls himself a "news gatherer," was president of the consulting firm hired by NBC to do the crash tests. He had given the tanks to a neighbor. GM got the tanks but Mr. Enz wouldn't answer any questions about the faked test, claiming he had First Amendment protection from interrogation. So, with little or no help from NBC, GM discovered that the fire that was described as a "holocaust" was a small, 15-second flame; that a non-standard gas cap was used and it blew off at impact, releasing gasoline that caught fire; and that X-rays showed no puncture in the gas tank. It cost General Motors nearly $2 million to investigate a piece of faked news. Who knows what it cost NBC to fake the story. But the visuals were captivating! |
