Coverage of Events

CBS Coverage

One of the focuses of the movie and an important key to comprehending the controversy is the 60 Minutes interview with Jeffrey Wigand. The interview follows the movie in portraying Jeffrey Wigand as a victim and a whistle-blower. In the interview, Wigand comes across as a scientist with a desire to make a healthier product who was bullied by Brown & Williamson. It goes into detail about Wigand's journey in the company, and his life after being fired. Furthermore, Wallace interviews Lucretia Wigand about her and her husband's struggles. Lucretia's portion of the interview is not shown in the movie.  All in all, the interview is very similar to the overall tone of the movie when covering Wigand.

However, when discussing its decisions in airing the interview, CBS seems to portray a different reality. The beginning of the piece starts with Wallace explaining that they were not allowed to broadcast the interview previously because CBS management was worried about a multibillion-dollar lawsuit from Brown & Williamson for "tortious interference." Wallace doesn't mention that CBS was undergoing a merger during that time or the fact that the chairman of CBS had a son who was one of the "Seven Dwarfs" of tobacco. Wallace does state that their was a "media frenzy" over their "failure" to broadcast the interview. In this sense, they are admitting to some sort of fault.

Overall, the CBS interview is very objective when talking to Wigand and describing the cover-ups and unethical practices of Brown & Williamson. It also includes some of the characters that the movie doesn't cover; Merrill Williams, the paralegal who stole the secret files from Brown & Williamson's law office; Dr. Stanton Glantz, the professor who discovered that Brown & Williamson knew the addictive and carcinogenic effects of their products, as well as a detailed plan to hide it from the public through the files distributed by Williams; and Kendrick Wells, a Brown & Williamson lawyer who allegedly rewrote the minutes of a meeting where scientists (including Wigand) discussed healthier alternatives and safer cigarettes. These individuals play a separate role in Brown & Williamson's controversy with Wigand (and thus were excluded from the movie), but the interview does well to bring them into the picture.  For sake of time and not wanting to over-cast the movie, Mann may also decided to roll elements of these people into other characters in the movie.
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New York Times Coverage

As the first source to discuss the decision by CBS not to air the Wigand interview, the New York Times played a key part in establishing the incident as a journalistic mishap. The article, written by Bill Carter, exposes the situation that CBS was in during their decision. An important thing to notice is that the article states that it was the "lawyers of CBS" who made the decision. This is somewhat in contrast to the movie and its depiction of Hewitt, Ober (Kluster in the film), and Wallace as steering the production in the direction of censoring the piece.

However, the article does describe Wallace and Hewitt as "agreeing with the lawyers' decision" to air the censored version of the report. "I'm very comfortable with the decision," Mr. Hewitt said. He added that CBS had not received any threat of a lawsuit from any tobacco company because of the planned interview. "We just knew that ABC had looked into the barrel of a gun," Mr. Hewitt said. This statement is completely polar to a later statement by Hewitt to PBS NewsHour in which he said, "Look, the only way I could have put that tobacco story on the air was to go find a bunch of guerrillas and go take the transmitter, right, and stand there with guns." This interview was done in November 1999, years after the decision was made. Hewitt might be trying to defend himself, but earlier pieces such as the New York Times article certainly tell a different story.

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A following editorial published by the New York Times took a very critical viewpoint of CBS and their decision to air an edited edition of the interview. In it, the author states that CBS was acting out of "fear of a lawsuit the industry had not even intended to file." Indeed, CBS had stated that the certain tobacco company (later revealed as Brown & Williamson) hadn't threatened to sue. The editorial continues, stating that this was an act of "self-censorship by the country's most powerful and aggressive television news program" that should send "a chilling message to journalists investigating industry practices." 

What message should it send? This article claims that we live in a business world where top executives and business giants can control what information is released to the public. No matter how committed to quality journalism a company is (who could argue otherwise in the case of CBS?), business mergers and fear of fiscal retribution blockade the truth that the public deserves. Especially on issues as important as public health, business takes priority over truth. The editorial ends by stating, "It is a shame that CBS chose to water down this report. The traditions of Edward R. Murrow and 60 Minutes itself were diluted in the process."

This editorial offers a highly-critical viewpoint of CBS and their decision. In an issue where most people were focused on the malpractice of Brown & Williamson, the author chooses to focus on the blunder made by the company who failed to disclose the truth. The article strikes at the heart of all those involved in censoring the interview, spreading the blame among all the individuals that refused to stand up the the intimidation and regulation of business influence.

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Vanity Fair Coverage

The Vanity Fair article "The Man Who Knew Too Much" is vital to the story of Jeffrey Wigand as well as CBS. From reading through its 14 pages, one can learn about the variety of sides on the events, a background of big tobacco industries, and most importantly for the film, the personal story of Jeffrey Wigand. The article shows that taking the time to collect all the stories and develop a detailed context pays off. It is by far the most detailed of all coverage of the events, and describes the life of Jeffrey Wigand in a way that all previous articles never did.

The author of the article, Marie Brenner, interacted with Wigand over the course of several days. Through this process she was able to fish out information from Wigand's past in his career and family life, as well as collect insightful quotes from him on the events during the time they were occurring. Moments after meeting with her, the enormous amount of stress that Wigand was under surfaced.
 “Something terrible has happened to me. Brown & Williamson has gotten private records from the Louisville courthouse. A local TV reporter has come to my school to ask about my marriage. They are trying to ruin my life. When I get back to Louisville, I may not have a job. A public-relations man in New York named John Scanlon is trying to smear me. I have five sets of lawyers who are representing me, and no one can agree on a strategy.  If they are successful in ruining my credibility, no other whistle-blower will ever come out of tobacco and do what I have done.” 

It's personal statements from Wigand, like these, that make the Vanity Fair article so insightful to Jeffrey Wigand's personality, mental state, and life story. It's no wonder that Michael Mann chose to base the movie off of this piece. The article contains a chronological story line of Wigand's time at Brown & Williamson, details of Bergman's involvement and eventual partnership with Wigand, and the legal wars that ensued between a multi-billion dollar company and a newly-hired schoolteacher. 

Is the article objective? Yes. The article contains many word-for-word statements by CBS employees, lawyers involved in the case, and statements from Lucretia Wigand with a detailed context in which they were said. It gives a variety of statistics, from the health hazards of certain tobacco products, to a 1996 statistic of law firms working on big tobacco cases. The article gives factual information and the sources from which the information was retrieved.

But the article is also personable. With many emotionally packed statements from Wigand, it feels as though it is perfect material on which to base the script for a Hollywood drama. Brenner describes the clothing of her interviewees, facial expressions, and personal issues facing some of the individuals involved. It describes Wigand's lack of respect for Sandefur in words that weren't captured even in the movie: “I wouldn’t consider them all intellectual titans.  Sandefur used to beat on me for using big words.  I never found anybody as stupid as Sandefur in terms of his ability to read or communicate.… in terms of his understanding something and his intellectual capacity, Sandefur was just like a farm boy.”

This might be a bit of a surprise coming from a magazine that has a "trending" tab on their website, but this article is a piece of good journalism. It is insightful, emotional, and truthful. It offers both the bright, inspirational side of Wigand as well as the dark, afflicted side. It describes the possible causes for CBS not airing the original interview, and gives an inside look at the feuds and psychological strain that the news corporation went through. All in all, it was the ideal piece for a movie to be based on. Whether or not the movie followed the information is another discussion.