By Hannah Hendricks
The actual news coverage concerning Brown & Williamson, a large tobacco industry, and its dealings with Jeffrey Wigand, a former employee of the company, line up very closely with how the movie The Insider portrays the historical events. Although in the movie and in reality, the news coverage is accurate, real life media takes the account into much greater detail than the movie could have ever done due to time constrictions, and also for the sake of entertainment. In both cases, Jeffrey Wigand is portrayed as the man who blew the whistle on the tobacco industry for lying about the harm cigarettes can cause.
The actual news coverage concerning Brown & Williamson, a large tobacco industry, and its dealings with Jeffrey Wigand, a former employee of the company, line up very closely with how the movie The Insider portrays the historical events. Although in the movie and in reality, the news coverage is accurate, real life media takes the account into much greater detail than the movie could have ever done due to time constrictions, and also for the sake of entertainment. In both cases, Jeffrey Wigand is portrayed as the man who blew the whistle on the tobacco industry for lying about the harm cigarettes can cause.
When the scandal was first being uncovered in 1995, the media was finally starting to get enough information to grasp a story. For instance, The New York Times published an article concerning Jeffrey Wigand and his lawsuit with Brown & Williamson. The tobacco company was suing Wigand for interviewing with the show 60 Minutes on CBS even though Wigand had signed confidentiality forms that clearly stated he could not speak out about inside information on the tobacco company. At this point in time, the interview with Wigand had done was not broadcasted due to CBS not wanting to deal with the pending lawsuit with Brown & Williamson. The article goes on to describe the attacks against Wigand in order to discredit him. This article frames Wigand as a fighter against the tobacco industry, even if he has to suffer the consequences. CBS is framed as being more neutral; not wanting to have to deal with lawsuits even if the interview they had conducted with Wigand had important information. This real life news coverage lines up closely with the storyline in The Insider where Wigand and CBS are portrayed very similarly.
Brown & Williamson worked on a 500 page smear campaign, meant to discredit anything that Jeffrey Wigand said concerning the lies the tobacco industry was putting out about cigarettes. The smear campaign attacked Wigand’s personal life, going after any deceitful thing they could find on Wigand, from shoplifting to lies about being on the Olympic Judo team. Brown & Williamson tried to get news outlets such as The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal to publish their findings. The Wall Street Journal ended up publishing a story that discredited all the claims that the 500 page smear campaign had against Wigand. The actual 500 page smear campaign was never published after this occurred. In the article by The Wall Street Journal, reporters Suein L. Hwang and Milo Geyelin go into detail on how Brown & Williamson had hired a private investigation firm to look up anything they could use against Wigand, along with a scientific consultant to look over Wigand’s doctoral dissertations to find any form of plagiarism. In this article, Hwang and Geyelin are able to clear up many of the claims that Brown & Williamson used against Wigand, which in most cases were misinterpreted or contradictory to the truth. In this case The Wall Street Journal shows how in journalism, it’s important to get the entire story and fact check the information you are given at first in order to give the public the truth, and not just a one-sided story. Sometimes this can be difficult to do, but in this situation dealing with the smear campaign, a high standard of accurate journalism was obtained.
One could argue that the most important piece of new coverage concerning this scandal was the actual interview that Jeffrey Wigand did with 60 Minutes that was not aired until February 4, 1996. The news story lasts a total of 30 minutes, going into much more detail than the interview shown at the end of the film, The Insider. However, the scenes in the movie that depict the interview are verbatim of the actual interview.
This interview, conducted by Mike Wallace, was the turning point that changed the tobacco industry forever. Jeffrey Wigand admits that Brown & Williamson knew that the chemicals being used in their products were carcinogens, which were causing cancer and tumors in smokers. Wigand also says that even though the tobacco company representatives knew this, in court all the representatives testified they did not believe cigarettes were harmful. Wigand also goes on to explain the real reasons why he was fired from working at Brown & Williamson and the threats he received after the tobacco company learned he had interviewed with the media about the real danger of cigarettes. Overall, the 60 Minutes interview does a good job of getting both sides of the story by also speaking with Kendrick Wells, who at the time was the staff attorney for Brown & Williamson. Wells discredits everything that Wigand claims about the tobacco industry. Another representative of Brown & Williamson, Gordon Smith, in the interview denies the claims put forth about the smear campaign by The Wall Street Journal and also goes as far to call Wigand a man of deceit. Although viewers of the interview are able to hear both sides of the scandal, 60 Minutes frames the tobacco industry as the bad guys while Wigand, for the most part, is framed as the hero of the story. The airing of this interview was not only a way to fight the tobacco industry but also showed how in the end, the truth will prevail over anything, even over those with power and money.
When speaking with Jeffrey Wigand in our phone interview with him, he mentioned how without the help of journalists such as those from The Wall Street Journal along with others, he wouldn't have been able to voice the truth about the tobacco industry. This shows how essential accurate journalism can be, and how journalism can have a strong effect on our society as a whole. Without journalism, Wigand wouldn't have been able blow the whistle on the tobacco industry and the public would not have been informed of what was occurring inside Brown & Williamson concerning the danger of their cigarettes.
This interview, conducted by Mike Wallace, was the turning point that changed the tobacco industry forever. Jeffrey Wigand admits that Brown & Williamson knew that the chemicals being used in their products were carcinogens, which were causing cancer and tumors in smokers. Wigand also says that even though the tobacco company representatives knew this, in court all the representatives testified they did not believe cigarettes were harmful. Wigand also goes on to explain the real reasons why he was fired from working at Brown & Williamson and the threats he received after the tobacco company learned he had interviewed with the media about the real danger of cigarettes. Overall, the 60 Minutes interview does a good job of getting both sides of the story by also speaking with Kendrick Wells, who at the time was the staff attorney for Brown & Williamson. Wells discredits everything that Wigand claims about the tobacco industry. Another representative of Brown & Williamson, Gordon Smith, in the interview denies the claims put forth about the smear campaign by The Wall Street Journal and also goes as far to call Wigand a man of deceit. Although viewers of the interview are able to hear both sides of the scandal, 60 Minutes frames the tobacco industry as the bad guys while Wigand, for the most part, is framed as the hero of the story. The airing of this interview was not only a way to fight the tobacco industry but also showed how in the end, the truth will prevail over anything, even over those with power and money.
When speaking with Jeffrey Wigand in our phone interview with him, he mentioned how without the help of journalists such as those from The Wall Street Journal along with others, he wouldn't have been able to voice the truth about the tobacco industry. This shows how essential accurate journalism can be, and how journalism can have a strong effect on our society as a whole. Without journalism, Wigand wouldn't have been able blow the whistle on the tobacco industry and the public would not have been informed of what was occurring inside Brown & Williamson concerning the danger of their cigarettes.
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