MovieChat Forums > The Insider (1999) Discussion > Questions... very confused here

Questions... very confused here

posted 10 years ago by cj1102
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Why was The New York Times not worried about "tortious interference" when printing words that Wigand spoke outside of his contractual agreement?

CBS didn't air the interview initially because of "tortious interference" or whatever, but the New York Times had no issue reporting it. Why?

And what changed that allowed CBS to finally air the interview? Why were they all of the sudden not scared of the lawsuit that would inevitably come for them for airing the interview?

And why did Bill give Lowell the three hours heads up on the unabomber? What did Bill owe Lowell? and why did he owe him whatever it is he owed him?

Thanks.

[–] greatwareagle 10 years ago

Been a while since I watched the film. I'm going to answer without referring to the film to see if my memory is correct.

Two things about the Times reporting.

One, quite simply perhaps the Times legal team wasn't sophisticated enough to realize tortious interference.

Two, tortious interference was just a clever excuse, which is pretty much what the film indicates. The sale to Westinghouse was the real reason.

They finally aired the segment once they grew a pair.

And I believe Lowell already knew something was about to go down in terms of the Unabomber, but Bill wanted Lowell to wait just a little more before reporting it, so he gave him the head's up when it wouldn't complicate things.

[–] cj1102 10 years ago

All checks out on my end. Appreciate it bud!

[–] vh8686 10 years ago

The New York Times couldn't be sued for tortious interference because it didn't compel or influence Wigand to break his confidentiality agreement..., CBS did that. Furthermore the owner of CBS at the time had been through litigation involving tortious interference with another company and it was a nightmare. The CBS owner's son was also CEO of another tobacco company who was one of the "seven dwarves" in the film. Read the Vanity Fair article it goes into much more depth about what occurs in the movie.

As far as why they finally aired it, the actual interval in between the censored version of the story and the original is over a year. In that time period, whatever merger or buyout that corporate was concerned about had happened. Also one of the head producers was concerned about Wigand's credibility since a lot was coming out about his alleged shoplifting and spousal abuse charges... by the time it had aired, all of that had been debunked.

With Lowell's relationship with the FBI guy, I can only speculate that for journalists and law enforcement, information on leads flows both ways. Lowell might have provided him with information in the past. Lowell did have a lot of connections.