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1980 Lois Lane lights up

SupermanPhilip Morris pioneers another form of brainwashing, this one involving subliminal advertising.

For a reported payment of $42,000, the company purchases 22 exposures of the Marlboro logo in the 1980 movie Superman II, which is aimed largely at the youth market.

Lois Lane, a newspaper reporter and role model for teenage girls, has a Marlboro pack on her desk and is shown puffing merrily away. At one point in the film, a character is tossed into a van with a large Marlboro sign on its side, and in the climactic scene the superhero battles foes amid a maze of Marlboro billboards before zooming off in triumph, leaving in his wake a solitary taxi with a Marloro sign on top.

1980s You’ve gone the wrong way, baby!

Philip Morris’ colorful ads at sporting events evade the TV broadcasting ban and purchase easy access to young people without appearing to target them. ABC’s sports program director, Lydia Stephans, says of Philip Morris’ access to millions of potential customers through its sponsorship of the televised Virginia Slims tennis circuit, “I think it’s clever. They’ve found a loophole.”

Philip Morris also prances so gracefully through the visual and performing arts that the Wall Street Journal anoints it “the art world’s favorite company.” Philip Morris Chairman George Weissman remarks, “We hope people will come away with favorable impressions of the companythat we are cultured human beings like everyone else, not a bunch of barbarians.”

Philip Morris selects groups in dire need of financial support who can’t afford to be fussy about their benefactors. “To tell you the truth, I’m not that interested,” Alison Dineen, of the Women’s Research and Educational Institute, responds when asked if she suffers any qualms about accepting tobacco money. Notes Caren Brooks Hopkins, of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, a prime recipient of Philip Morris largesse, “There are so many people who do absolutely nothing for the arts. Let’s go after them.”

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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