PMI, Vice and me
According to a headline in the FT on Thursday:
Marlboro maker teams up with Vice for vaping push.
A source has since told me the report contains “inaccuracies”.
What is not in doubt is that Vice and Philip Morris have worked together before – see Vice Media attacked for making tobacco adverts for Philip Morris (March 2016) – so it's hardly a revelation.
Funnily enough, back in January I was interviewed by a freelance journalist who was writing an article for Vice.
He had been commissioned, he said, to write about the ‘smoking lobbies’.
We met at Boisdale and talked for the best part of two hours.
The article has yet to appear but I’m told it’s due to be published next month.
Update: PMI’s Dr Moira Gilchrist, vice president, Scientific and Public Communications, has tweeted:
This is flat wrong. @InsidePMI will be the initial funder of an editorially-independent media platform by Vice whose first initiative is aimed at getting adult smokers to quit cigarettes. It will not promote e-cigarettes, tobacco products nor any brands.
— Dr. Moira Gilchrist (@DrGilchrist) March 22, 2019