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involved in the story left NBC, purportedly because of management pressure to resign (Kurtz,
1993).
However, after NBC settled the lawsuit, an outside law firm hired by the network to
investigate the test crash concluded that a broken headlamp, not the incendiary devices, ignited
gasoline that spilled from the truck’s tank after the collision punched a hole in the tank and
dislodged its gas cap. The Institute for Safety Analysis, which acted as a consultant to the
report’s producers, claimed that “the fire was caused by one of the car’s headlamps, not by the
igniters,” and the law firm agreed that “to our untrained eyes the videotape does appear to
support the consultants’ reports.” (Goodale, 1993a, 3). In 1994, the United States Department of
Transportation found that the trucks were indeed prone to fires in side collisions and blamed GM
for 150 deaths caused by them (Shepard, 1996). The NHTSA found that the C/K trucks were 2.4
times more likely to explode than Ford pickups and 3.5 times more likely to explode than Dodge
pickups (Adler, 1993). GM entered into a settlement with the government, agreeing to spend
$51.36 million on safety and research programs (Nauss, 1994).
Food Lion v. ABC
On November 5, 1992, ABC’s PrimeTime Live aired an investigative report on Food
Lion, charging the supermarket chain with unsafe food handling practices and forcing employees
to work overtime without pay. Former Food Lion workers spoke of marinating rotten fish in
baking soda, repackaging old chicken in barbecue sauce and removing “sell-by” dates on eggs
and yogurt with fingernail polish. The report also featured footage obtained by cameras hidden
in the wigs of two ABC producers who had lied on their job applications to go undercover as
Food Lion employees (Folkerts, 1998).
Convention