Was Malcolm Gladwell in the Pocket of Big Tobacco?
The eXiled’s Yasha Levine seems to think so. And he puts forward a pretty convincing case.
Levine tracks Malcom Gladwell’s career back to the Washington Post, where he dug up a number of unquestionably pro-tobacco pieces. One of those pieces from 1990 essentially made the argument that curbing smoking would bankrupt social security – by causing people to live longer. Yikes.
More damning, Levine traced Gladwell’s name back to a tobacco industry “THIRD-PARTY MESSAGE DEVELOPMENT CONTACT LIST.”
For those not familiar with public relations industry lingo, “third-party” refers to a PR technique in which corporate propaganda is funneled through seemingly independent journalists, academics, non-profits, think tanks and other respected “third parties” in order to bolster the credibility of “the message” with the public.
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