Still, that's not quite as bizarre and dickish as what Franklin did to Titan Leeds. Publishing under his Richard Saunders pseudonym in his famous Poor Richard's Almanac, in between weather predictions and crop suggestions, Franklin predicted the death of Leeds, a rival almanac owner. When the predicted day arrived and Leeds, predictably, was still alive, Franklin decided to report and confirm the death anyway.

Source.

Leeds desperately published his counter-argument ("No I'm not.") but Franklin, an accomplished black belt in the subtle art of being a dick (or, "dickjitsu") pushed his lie even further and reported that, not only did Leeds die, but he was replaced by an impostor who was shamelessly hijacking the Leeds name to continue publishing almanacs. When Leeds eventually did die (five years after Franklin had predicted it), you'd think Franklin would come clean, but that's because you are, at best, a dickjitsu yellow belt.

Above: A dickjitsu master

Instead, in an act of unequaled dickishness, Franklin came out and congratulated the Leeds impostor for finally owning up to their lie and ending the whole charade (by dying). To reiterate, a guy's death is wrongfully reported, that guy tries to correct the mistake, Franklin calls him a shameless fraud and, at his death, congratulates him for dying. Textbook dickjitsu.

Or both.

GM, of course rebutted the findings of Dateline, made a request to inspect the vehicles used in the footage and study the videos NBC released. Harry Pearce, GM's executive vice president at the time, gave an exhaustive press conference regarding Dateline's coverage, a press conference that involved what those in the legal field call "a shitload of evidence." One piece of evidence was a letter from NBC claiming that the vehicles used in the video were "junked" and, as a result, their inspection would be impossible.

Another piece of evidence was the fucking cars themselves, and they were astonishingly not junked. Before the folks at Dateline could get their act together and respond, "Oh, you wanted the cars we used in the footage, oh, OK, we thought you said cards, and we were like, 'huh?' Ah, but no, the cars are fine...," Pearce was ready to move onto Act 2 of Ruining NBC's Shit: The Musical.

Pearce also discovered that the explosion in the video wasn't caused by a faulty fuel tank, but was actually caused by remote detonation of explosives the producers rigged to the trucks prior to filming, and a person was standing off camera pushing a button a split second before the filmed impact. A lot of sneaky journalism scandals can be attributed to one scummy guy with delusions of blowjobs from big-boobed reporter groupies, but not this time.

Five different people were responsible for the idea. Three got fired, one resigned and one got the priest treatment--she was transferred to another station. We at Cracked like to think the best about people, so the only explanation is that they were drunk. For weeks. And a crazy ex-GM employee with an axe to grind was holding their daughters hostage.

It was a matter of weeks before GM initiated a lawsuit, pulled their ads and put out a two hour press release skullfucking Dateline into oblivion, all while cackling, "Who's exploding now, motherfucker?!" Jane Pauley read an apology on air, Dateline learned their lesson and moved on to more dignified reporting, and this also marked the last time GM ran into any trouble whatsoever, at all.

We guess the technology of '98 was so new and scary to the staff of The New Republic that they couldn't be bothered to club "Jukt Micronics" into a search engine. The article did, however catch the attention of Forbes Digital, and when word got around to Glass that those nerds at Forbes smelled a rat, he whipped up fake business cards, phony voicemail accounts in California, a dummy AOL members website for the software company and actually got his brother to pose as the voice of the CEO of Jukt Micronics. And he would've gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for those meddling Forbes fact-checkers, and also logic. Glass was fired within a day, and went on to write an unsuccessful novel based on his experiences.

When a rebellion in Cuba against the Spanish started brewing, Hearst and Pulitzer saw a golden opportunity; they'd report on the situation in Cuba to sell papers, and if the situation wasn't interesting, they'd make shit up because journalism is easy when you don't have a soul. Hearst and Pulitzer would take sensationalized, unverified stories of made-up atrocities, make those stories even more sensationalized and then feed the twice-baked-sensationalizations to the American people as the truth. And the people, thanks to the papers, believed that America had an ethical obligation to step in and save those Cubans.

Every John Q. Public with a paper assumed that the Spanish warlords were raping and murdering the poor, defenseless Cubans and leaving them in rotting piles on the side of the road, because that's the kind of story you write when you own a newspaper and are bored. When a Journal news photographer attempted to leave Cuba, reporting to Hearst that the situation wasn't as bad as Hearst had reported, Hearst sent a cable boasting, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war." Then the USS Maine, an American warship, blew the fuck up under questionable circumstances.

Post-explosion, President McKinley demanded an immediate investigation, but Hearst and Pulitzer demanded even more immediate "THE SPANISH DID IT" headlines. Their reporting was so immediate, in fact, that word had reached the American people about Spain's involvement in the sinking before the investigation even started. To this day, we don't know why exactly the Maine exploded, we just know why it didn't: the Spanish. But that didn't get in the way of headlines! What a scoop!

The catchy rallying cry that resulted--"Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!"--was just the propaganda tool a young and soon to be outstandingly mustachioed Teddy Roosevelt was looking for to satisfy his itch for a new war. Proving that no mere mortal can withstand Teddy Roosevelt, the war was over in a matter of weeks and Pulitzer and Hearst basked in the afterglow, all while continuing their reporting charades which included failing to mention that the iconic battle in the Spanish American War was actually thanks to an African American cavalry. Shine on you crazy diamonds!

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