Word: tobacco
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Moore, a Democrat who took office in 1988 and is seeking testimony about tobacco's addictive properties and impact on health, believes the subpoena will protect Wigand from legal action by B&W for breaking his nondisclosure contract. But even more explosive than Wigand's deposition could be the documents that the subpoena requests him to produce. Those papers supposedly include evidence that B&W altered its research into the carcinogenic, toxic or addictive effects of tobacco, as well as a diary Wigand kept while working there. Wigand, says Moore, has "wanted to tell the truth...
...painful for CBS because 60 Minutes has long managed to remain aloof from the network's ups and downs--a steady symbol (and often vocal defender) of the old standards and traditions. The controversy stems from a 60 Minutes story that was to include an interview with a former tobacco-industry executive seeking to blow the whistle on alleged misdeeds by his former employer. But the interview was killed after CBS lawyers raised concerns about possible lawsuits that the network could face from the tobacco industry if it were...
...bowdlerized version of the story (without the interview) a week ago, at the end of which correspondent Mike Wallace announced that he and his colleagues were "dismayed that the management at CBS had seen fit to give in to perceived threats of legal action against us by a tobacco-industry giant." Wallace, Morley Safer and other CBS newsmen continued to voice their concerns in print and TV interviews, raising alarms that CBS's corporate bosses might be getting weak-kneed in the face of aggressive (and potentially expensive) threats of libel. It was CBS journalists on their most impressive high...
...week, however, Hewitt and Wallace were no longer talking, after a published report suggested that CBS lawyers may have had legitimate cause for concern. According to the Wall Street Journal, 60 Minutes made a number of unusual arrangements with the tobacco-industry source--later revealed to be former Brown & Williamson executive Jeffrey S. Wigand. He was reportedly paid a $12,000 "consultant fee" for work he had done on a previous 60 Minutes segment; was promised that the network would indemnify him against any possible libel suit resulting from the story; and given a pledge that the interview would...
...contract with another. Attorneys are divided over whether the network could successfully have been sued on such grounds. By paying money to Wigand and agreeing to indemnify him against a lawsuit, some contended, CBS had put itself at serious risk. Attorneys who have been involved in litigation against the tobacco industry, however, insisted that the network was needlessly timid. "I think it's appalling they would fold over such an iffy theory of law," says John P. Coale, a Washington lawyer who represents 50 law firms pursuing a class action against tobacco companies...