NBC News deserved the humiliation it suffered after General Motors revealed that Dateline had rigged its infamous 1992 pickup-truck explosion with model rocket engines.
What history largely forgot is that GM’s trucks really did pose a serious safety hazard—and that the automaker had a documented history of punishing major publications whose coverage it didn’t like.
Three decades later, as federal regulators scrutinize safety issues involving more than two million GM vehicles, that forgotten history offers an uncomfortable lesson about the state of automotive journalism.
