The Tobacco Files
A Lima shopkeeper displays a carton of Philip Morris' Marlboro Lights. Marlboro's "full flavor" version is the region's leading brand among "starters and young adult smokers." |
The purpose of these symposia was, as another Boyse memo put it, to "inform local media representatives of the company's position on smoking issues; to persuade them that we have a credible and interesting response to the claims that are made about our products, and that our position is based on independent research and thus supported by independent experts. More specifically, to persuade media to become allies in lobbying against smoking restrictions." [emphasis added]
Other documents show that both BAT and Philip Morris frequently invited journalists from the region to visit their corporate headquarters, often at industry expense. These visits were designed, according to a 1994 proposal, to give journalists a "better understanding ... of the other sides of tobacco issues" as well as to establish "better understanding ... of the othersides of tobacco issues" as well as to establish "better personal relationships" between industry representatives and "the editors and senior journalists of the South American media."
The same proposal noted, however, that "some media have a policy that they do not accept all expenses paid trips for their journalists as this could be seen to compromise their independence... In this respect, freelancers can be a better bet as they are more open to having their trip paid for, and they are less likely to 'bite the hands that feed them' as they will want to safeguard their place on any future trips."
The industry also found it useful to produce its own articles—by internal staff, paid consultants or, in at least one case, by a freelance journalist based outside the region. In a 1991 memo, Boyse writes:
We have discussed the possibility of having articles written in a suitable style and on suitable issues that could then be circulated to operating companies and hopefully, through their contacts, printed in the local press.
It was agreed that for the purposes of this region it would probably be most suitable to have a freelance journalist based in the USA to write these articles. Philip Morris have therefore been looking for a suitable Spanish-speaking journalist for some time now and believe that they have found one that may be suitable for us.
Copies of the first articles that were drafted by this journalist are enclosed: two short pieces: one newspaper story and one editorial, and one longer feature piece, 'Historia de la evaluación sobre el riesgo en el fumador pasivo' [A history of the evaluation of the risks of passive smoking]. I would be grateful if all companies could let me have comments on these articles ... Are these the kinds of articles that companies feel they could pass on to local media contacts for possible printing?
A far more audacious proposal, described in a 1991 Boyse memo to her colleague David Bacon, but apparently never carried out, would have had BAT's affiliate in Argentina organize disruptions of the March 1992 8th World Conference on Tobacco or Health, held in Buenos Aires:
Argentina have a plan but I'm no longer confident that they will be able to influence the media output as they refused to participate in the second part of the Paul Dietrich proposal, which was essentially to persuade some journalists to go along to the press conferences and harangue people like [former U.S. President] Jimmy Carter about health priorities. That would have influenced coverage and we were going to arrange for training in how to disrupt a press conference—but they declared (as usual) that this wouldn’t work in Argentina.
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