Daring Fireball: ‘The Insider’

All this Sturm und Drang surrounding 60 Minutes has me thinking about a re-watch of The Insider, Michael Mann’s great 1999 movie. Letterboxd’s synopsis: “A research chemist comes under personal and professional attack when he decides to appear in a 60 Minutes exposé on Big Tobacco.” It’s a great movie, and feels apt AF at the moment. Here’s the original segment on 60 Minutes, which ran an entire half hour.

What’s going on today is like if — instead of getting shady, threatening, and litigious — the tobacco companies had just purchased CBS, purged the staff at 60 Minutes, and hired a bunch of pro-cigarette stooges to replace them.

Spot on.