TELEVISION - March 22, 1993

NBC Producers Out: “Dateline NBC” executive producer Jeff Diamond and producers David Rummel and Robert Read told colleagues that they had been notified by NBC that they should negotiate a settlement to leave the network and that they were effectively being dismissed. They said their lawyers had been told of the proposed settlement by NBC’s lawyers. Some NBC staffers expressed disappointment that the three had been notified in calls from lawyers to their lawyers, not by NBC executives, and that they were told prior to the expected public disclosure of NBC’s inquiry into “Dateline NBC’s” rigging of a truck crash. Diamond and Rummel said goodby to the surprised “Dateline” staff on Friday; they could not be reached for comment. An NBC spokeswoman said that NBC’s inquiry is continuing and she declined to comment on the three producers’ statuses.