With time, doesn’t the FDA reveal what’s harmful and kills people? Like in the “60-Minute” piece and film Dr.Wigand says that, “no matter how many regulations are made, people are still going to do it,” so why did Jeffrey Wigand think that exposing confidential information was necessary? I believe that when you go to the president of a brand/company and they tell you they don’t want to hear your complaints or ideas of a safer cigarette, you have to choose their side or just quit. Not necessarily quit on the idea of creating a safer cigarette but work on it with others who would both want that idea and invest in its growth, without exposing companies and confidentiality.
There’s always a heavy price that comes with exposing information that was deemed classified. In the cases of both Wigand and Ellsberg both had sudden new information that changed their perspective on who they were working with. The overlapping comparisons to Ellsberg is Confidentiality agreements. Although it’s best to reveal things that can be harmful in our society, when you’re part of a business or organization it’s best to just step back and vaguely warn others especially if you signed a contract that is meant to keep confidential information hidden. The only difference is that Ellsberg had nothing to lose, he knew he was going to jail, and he had also participated in the army showing how he could leave everything behind for his research and protecting soldiers.. If that doesn’t come to show any difference, there’s also the part where Jeffrey Wigand was threatened through voice messages, these threats which questions about their families safety. This shows that Ellsberg had nothing to lose while Wigand did. Wigand was scared enough to buy a handgun. Just by “messing” with a tobacco company so many things could have and did happen. I think Wigand was under a lot of stress to even comprehend what his actions could lead him to. He lost his wife to all of the stress and mess that came with exposing confidential information on “60-Minutes” and working on a safer cigarette.
Yes, whistleblowers are very important. It’s mentioned that we in the present already know how harmful cigarettes are, and how evil these companies are. Fast food, cigarettes, drugs, and there’s even tap water that can cause disease which would lead to death. We all know this, that’s how companies profit, through addiction and people’s bad habits. Many companies are corrupt yet there’s still cigarettes being made, fast food is still extremely popular, and for some drugs are needed to ‘live’. That’s why when I read that Wigand is trapped in a war between the government and its attempts to regulate the $50 billion tobacco industry, I think that it’s not that surprising. One of my history classes lessons was how America and capitalism is meant to keep the government away from businesses and try to regulate them. That’s how profits are made, that’s why so many businesses get away with tax frauds and go without paying as much money as we think they do. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be a whistleblower and I wouldn’t be proud to be one either just because I would know they’d just get rid of me and wouldn’t change at all. I think Jeffery Wigand already knew this, with this information in mind, is this one reason why Dr.Wigand regrets being a whistleblower?
Moving on to CBS and “60-Minutes” this is an important time in American history where cigarette companies are being exposed. I feel like in that age of films and shows many wanted to expose companies like this with documentaries and such. If I’m not wrong this whole spiel feels like it’s similar to cancel culture, companies like these still remain, and their products still cause cancer. Cancel culture I feel is in today’s era as a way to bully others and shame for past mistakes all the while big corporations don’t get any type of accountability. I feel like “60-inutes” and Lowell Bergman are part of shows that show both sides of the story but are biased to Wellberg since he exposed how detrimental tobacco companies are. This reminds me of Netflix’s horrible “Tiger King”, since Tigers and wild animals are still part of America as is tobacco and cigarettes. Though both of these films just show how much people can get away with things when it comes to owning companies and zoo’s.
When the question, should an artist take creative license, comes up I immediately say yes. Since a creative license is a form of getting copyrights it’s very important. The only way to be taken seriously with all this is a creative licence so that you hold a much more credible title. When you have a creative licence you can’t be told how to film and what to share in your films. So many legal things come into play, like in “Tiger King”. “Tiger King” is a documentary series that follows Joe Exotica who runs a zoo full of tigers, and it also follows others, both infamous and famous, tiger petting Zoo owners. These types of documents expose so many things and sometimes when you’re working with such sensitive information people think that they can sue you or threaten you to delete footage. Documentaries and films are not to be controlled by outsiders. Both of the conflicts have so much information about companies and zoo’s, its important to get a creative lisecne when creating films like these because anyone of the zoo owners or companies could decide that they are painted the wrong way and decide to take the directors or film producers to court and file lawsuits against them.
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