Of course, there are some instructive real-life case studies. Getting the most attention is a detailed retelling of NBC Dateline's rigged report on exploding gas tanks in General Motors trucks, which were purportedly prone to bursting into flames in accidents. Most Americans are probably somewhat familiar with NBC's famous broadcast apology. However, few of us likely know much about GM's shrewd counterattack, and how corporate representatives hunted down the vehicles videotaped for the show, bought them from Indianapolis-area junkyards and found the damning evidence of a rocket motor still attached to a door of one of the trucks. GM's ultimate victory deserves a place in American damage-control history.
Problem is, it all is too little coming too late.
He doesn't get to the GM yarn until page 192 and the dissuasion chapter til the 199th page. And then he slides quickly back into deriding attackers in the rest of the book. Moreover, we might have learned a bit more had Dezenhall chosen a lesser-known case than the Dateline hoax to be the star tale of the book. It is indeed that. Dezenhall's views into mass vilification are incisive and thought provoking.