The Tobacco Playbook: 4. Tobacco in the Dock
'Due to favourable scientific testimony, no plaintiff has ever collected a penny from a tobacco company in lawsuits , even though 117 such cases have been brought’. The plan works.
As the evidence against tobacco mounts, the court suits keep coming. Tobacco keeps winning.
‘Due to favourable scientific testimony, no plaintiff has ever collected a penny from any tobacco company in lawsuits even though 117 such cases have been brought’. An internal memo from tobacco company R J Reynolds reveals a motive behind their funding of research. In this episode the battle is taken to the court room as we hear how a land mark trial toppled tobacco.
From climate change to smoking and cancer, this is the story of how doubt has been manufactured. This 10 part series explores how powerful interests and sharp PR managers engineered doubt about the connection between smoking and cancer and how similar tactics were later used by some to make us doubt climate change.
With the help of once-secret internal memos, we take you behind boardroom doors where such strategies were drawn up and explore how the narrative changed on one of the most important stories of our time - and how the marketing of doubt has undermined our willingness to believe almost everything.
Presenter: Peter Pomerantsev
Producer: Phoebe Keane
Last on
Broadcast
- Thu 30 Jul 2020 13:45´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4 FM
How the oil industry made us doubt climate change
Podcast
-
How They Made Us Doubt Everything
Investigating claims there could be asbestos in make-up and the industry's response.