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ASH Daily News

Thursday, 16 December 1999

Prisoner ordered to repay £10m
‘The man who smoked out bent journalism’

Headlines

Full Text

Prisoner ordered to repay £10m

A serving prisoner who masterminded an illicit trade in beer, spirits
and cigarettes was ordered by a judge yesterday to repay £10m of his
ill-gotten gains to the public purse, or face another fives years
being added to his current nine year sentence.

Source: The Independent, The Guardian, Daily Star, The Express, The
Sun, 16 December 1999

‘The man who smoked out bent journalism’

The Evening Standard News Extra provides a profile of Lowell Bergman,
the TV journalist, who is played by Al Pacino in the Film Insider.

Christopher Hitchens is writes that the film ‘ cleverly avoids a
saccharine ending. It’s true that Wigand’s tale eventually made the
air, and good triumphed over evil. But Lowell Bergman resigned his
job, because he said he’d never be able in good conscience to ask a
source to go to the limit again.

The article concludes, ‘These days, the media priority is
entertainment, sometimes justified as, “giving the people what they
want”. Of course, this also used to be the favourite slogan of the
mighty tobacco companies, who also had subtle ways of ensuring that
people wanted what they got’.

Source: Evening Standard News Extra, 15 December 1999



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