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...Nike CEO Phil Knight talking to director Michael Moore in a scene from...
What was Phil Knight thinking when he agreed to appear in Michael Moore's just released movie? If he actually trusted the populist filmmaker to intervene as Knight went postal on camera and started pumping round after round into his own foot, then Nike's founder is even more out of touch than legend has it. Who volunteers for an ambush interview and then, to compound his error, publicly condemns the outcome...
Moore, skilled at paying out rope to his victims (and then charging them for it), later agreed to meet with Nike spokesman Lee Weinstein to discuss damage control. Nike had two problems with the interview, Weinstein explained. First, it was unfair to include Knight's endorsement of a 14-year-old labor force while leaving out his subsequent pledge to make a transition to 16-year-olds (a difficult task, says Nike, given the workers' propensity for using "forged documents"). Second, Knight referred to his employees as "poor little Indonesian workers," a characterization that failed to convey the respect...
Moore decided to deal. He couldn't remove anything from the movie, he told Weinstein, but if Nike were to build a facility in Flint, Mich., he'd add a new scene. Heartened, Weinstein whipped out a notepad. Would that be a shoe factory or a warehouse? Moore, who can't keep a straight face at gunpoint, fought back tears of incredulity. Anything that'll employ 500 people at a livable wage, he replied. Weinstein promised to get back...
Upon reaching Portland, Ore., Moore is at his best as he interviews Nike CEO Phil Knight, the only CEO who agreed to talk with Moore on camera. Moore asks Knight why Nike refuses to let Americans manufacture Nike shoes. (At the IOP, Moore claimed Nike tried to pressure him into editing out much of this interview.) Nike, like the other companies Moore features reaped substantial profits during the documentary's filming...