"A story we set out to report six months ago has now turned into two stories: how cigarettes can destroy peoples' lives and how one cigarette company is trying to destroy the reputation of a man who refused to keep quiet about what he says he learned when he worked for them. The company is Brown & Williamson, America's third largest tobacco company. The man they set out to destroy is Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, their former three-hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year director of research."
-Mike Wallace
Much of the movie is focused on the controversial "60 Minutes" interview with Jeffrey Wigand and his position as a whistle-blower in uncovering Brown & Williamson, as well as how he was victimized by the smear campaign that tore his life and family apart. The interview is well portrayed in the movie, aside from some small changes that might have been the result of time-restraints in a Hollywood film, budgets, and casting.
The CBS interview included interviews and coverage of Lucretia Wigand, his wife; Merrill Williams, who stole the documents from B&W; Dr. Stanton Glatz, the professor who found that Brown & Williamson were aware of the addictive properties of nicotine; and Kendrick Wells, a lawyer at B&W, who rewrote a whole meeting of minutes while Wigand and other chemists suggested other alternatives than nicotine that were less harmful and safer to use. Unfortunately, none of these people and their contributions, made appearances in the movie.
One of the most important to things to be aware of is that in both the movie and the actual interview, it is discussed that CBS's decision to first not air the interview was due to "tortious interference", and the company was engaged in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit. Tortious interference occurs when a third party puts pressure onto one of two parties that have a confidentiality agreement. In this case, a confidentiality agreement between Jeffrey Wigand and B & W, with the third party being CBS. However, Wallace failed to mention that at the time one of the board's chairmen was the son of one of the "seven dwarf" tobacco companies.
“I am a whistle blower...I am notorious. It is a kind of
infamy
doing what I am doing. Isn’t that what they say?”
doing what I am doing. Isn’t that what they say?”
– Jeffrey Wigand
The Vanity Fair article "The Man Who Knew Too Much" is a key piece to Jeffrey Wigand's story. The 14 page article covers varying sides of the story, includes background on the tobacco companies, and Jeffrey's own personal version of the story. It also includes a chronological timeline, Bergman's relationship with Wigand, and the many lawsuits and legal wars that occurred. Out of all the newspapers that covered the story, it is by far the most in depth and spans over the largest coverage of the events. (Our group actually read this article before even watching the interview because it provided our knowledge of the topic with a much stronger foundation.)
In May 1996, Marie Brenner met with Wigand in a Louisville sports bar. Across the span of several days, Brenner met and interviewed Wigand several times and provided an accurate portrayal of his life due to the personal level the article reaches. The strong doses of personal statements might be one of the reasons that Mann chose to highlight this article in the movie.
"I just wanted to get the story out, but I can't give you 25 reasons why I did it."
Overall, the piece was very well done. It has emotional ties while remaining accurate and providing insight towards both the positive and negative sides of the events. It covered background information and related the potential reasons why CBS had planned to not air the interview, and the countless psychological feuds that many experienced when dealing with the ethics of Wigand's story. As a good work of journalism, it's easy to see why Mann based much of the movie around the article. However, how closely the movie followed the article is a different story.
Written by Bill Carter, the New York Times article was one of the first news sources to cover CBS and its decision to edit the segment so that it did not include Wigand's interview. The article focuses largely on exposing the legal situation CBS and the drama that ensued. Though the article is brief and to the point, it uses valid internal sources that help accurately shed light on CBS and its choice to censor the interview.
"We have a story that we think is solid," Mr. Hewitt said then. "We don't think anybody could ever sue us for libel. There are some twists and turns, and if you get in front of a jury in some states where the people on that jury are all related to people who work in tobacco companies, look out. We may opt to get out of the line of fire. That doesn't make me proud but it's not my money."
One important to thing that we noticed from this article was that the movie made it seem like just Hewitt, Wallace and Ober were responsible for the decision to not air the interview. However, the article said otherwise, saying it was a choice made by "the lawyers of CBS." Though it can be noted that all agreed with the lawyers, it was a major difference we noticed between the two representations.
______________________
It's also important to note that shortly after, an editorial piece was published in the Times as well. Instead of focusing in on Brown & Williamson and Wigand, it offered a critical viewpoint on CBS's ethics. The fact that a trusted news source, like CBS, was editing their news is addressed and the author strikes at the company for its inability to present the truth.
"This act of self-censorship by the country's most powerful and aggressive television news program sends a chilling message to journalists...In any event, CBS's response to a feared suit under this doctrine was exactly wrong."
Basically the whole op-ed is framed to show that news corporations and businesses have the final say about what information is released to the public (agenda setting and gatekeeping), and that more often then not, the reasons behind exposing/hiding the truth are decided on what will save companies tails. Both those that censored the interview, and those who failed to stand up for the truth due to business influence, received heavy lashes from the author who said it was "a shame that CBS chose this moment to water down its report. The traditions of Edward R. Murrow and "60 Minutes" itself were diluted in the process."
The Wall Street Journal was the very first paper to publish information about Jeffrey Wigand and his affairs with Brown & Williamson. The pieces discuss and pull apart the internal reports of B&W that came into Wigand's possession. The first article focused on how the tobacco company knew that by increasing the delivery of nicotine to smokers, they could increase profit due to the addictiveness of the drug. The second article explored other harmful additives that companies also put in their tobacco products, and Wigand isn't even mentioned.
Although, we searched and searched the Journal's archives, we weren't able to find either of the articles that were printed in October 1995. We assume however, that because the articles were featured in a very similar way as the interview done with CBS, it explains why the paper received little coverage in the movie despite winning a Pulitzer Prize for these stories.
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