Puff Piece by John Safran (2021 Penguin Softcover 353pp)
I’ve been a fan of Australian multimedia host, agent provocateur and journalist John Safran for over 20 years now. He first turned up on our televisions in the late 1990s and I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything he’s produced since. In the last decade he’s stepped back from the cameras and microphones and become a writer, going quiet for long stretches then popping back up with a new book of investigative journalism every few years.
His latest effort is “Puff Piece” wherein he takes on the might of the Philip Morris tobacco company. The company is trying to change its image and is claiming it is now trying to stop people from smoking. Instead, it offers an electronic heating device, the IQOS, into which you insert “HeatSticks” which according to the company PR are definitely not cigarettes even if they look and act just like them. Safran goes down the rabbit hole of claims and counter-claims and finds Phillip Morris using doublespeak the world over as it tries to keep its business running. The company opposes vaping in one country but in another it uses its resources to lobby the law-makers to liberalise the laws on electronic smoking devices and so on. He meets the spokesmen, lobbyists and ordinary workers in the industry and tries to make sense of the often-contradictory information he finds. He comes across moral dilemmas – should he attend a free lunch paid for by Philip Morris? Should he write about a friend who is being funded by tobacco industry money?
The investigation is interesting enough but for me it was the little slices of Safran’s domestic life that made this book all the better. His self-doubt and self-depreciation, his friends and family all add to the mix and make things more enjoyable. He uses his former radio co-host, Father Bob – an Aussie character himself, for sage advice and generally acts as a human rather than a detached investigator.
Safran has a distinctive voice and I couldn’t help but hear it as I read his words. It’s a fun ride but seems to peter out slightly before the end. COVID-19 arrives in Melbourne and seems to rob the author of what would have been a natural conclusion.
If you’re already a fan of John Safran, you won’t want to miss this. If not, it may be something of an acquired taste.
