THE INSIDER

                         LOWELL
               Yeah.

     INT. A CITY BUS, NEW YORK - MORNING

     Broadway backgrounds streak past Debbie DeLuca's head as she
     rides, talking on a cell phone, The Wall Street Journal in
     her hand.

                         DEBBIE DELUCA
               ...front page.  There's a picture of
               Wigand.  Article's entitled, "Getting
               Personal," by-lined to Suein Hwang and
               Milo Geyelin.  Wait, hold on a second,
               Lowell.

     Debbie hits "call waiting."

                         DEBBIE DELUCA (cont'd)
               Yeah.  Yeah, sure.  I'll see if I can
               find him.  Hold on...
                   (beat; to Lowell)
               Yeah, Don's looking for you...

                         LOWELL
               Good.

                         DEBBIE DELUCA
               The sub-heading is, "Brown & Williamson
               Has a 500-Page Dossier Attacking Chief
               Critic."
               It quotes Richard Scruggs calling it "the
               worst kind of an organized smear campaign
               against a whistle-blower."

     INT. COFFEE SHOP, NEW YORK - MORNING

     EXTREMELY CLOSE Lowell.

                         DEBBIE DELUCA'S VOICE (OVER)
               "...a close look at the file, and
               independent research by this newspaper
               into its key claims, indicates that many
               of the serious allegations against Mr.
               Wigand are backed by scant or
               contradictory evidence..."

     EXT. STREET, NEW YORK - MORNING

     As Lowell hails a cab in a WIDE ANGLE and runs towards us,
     jumping into the cab...

     INT. DON HEWITT'S OFFICE - DAY

                         DON HEWITT
               The news division has been vilified in
               The New York Times, in print, on
               television, for caving to corporate
               interests!

     We PULL BACK and we see that Lowell's with Hewitt in Hewitt's
     office...

                         DON HEWITT (CONT'D)
               The New York Times ran a blow by blow of
               what we talked about behind closed doors!
               You fucked us!

                         LOWELL
                   (shouting)
               No, you fucked you!  Don't invert stuff!
               Big Tobacco tried to smear Wigand; you
               bought it.  The Wall Street Journal,
               here, not exactly a bastion of anti-
               capitalist sentiment, refutes Big
               Tobacco's smear campaign as the lowest
               form of character assassination!  And
               now, even now, when every word of what
               Wigand has said on our show is printed,
               the entire deposition of his testimony in
               a court of law in the State of
               Mississippi, the cat totally out of the
               bag, you're still standing here debating!
               Don, what the hell else...do you need?

     And Hewitt, looking around.

                         DON HEWITT
               Mike, you tell him...

                         MIKE WALLACE
                   (simply)
               You fucked up, Don.

     And Don's taken off stride...

                         DON HEWITT
                   (recovers fast)
               Hey, it's old news!  Stick with me.  Like
               always, we'll be okay.  These things have
               a half-life of fifteen minutes...

                         MIKE WALLACE
               No, that's fame.  Fame has a fifteen-
               minute half-life...
                   (droll)
               Infamy...lasts a little longer.

     Lowell looks at Wallace.

                         MIKE WALLACE (CONT'D)
               We caved.  It's foolish.  It's simply
               dead wrong.
                   (in his face, so there's no
                    doubt)
               Now, this is what we're going to do.
               We're going over to Black Rock...

     INT. A HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE CLASS, LOUISVILLE - AFTERNOON

     Jeff is in front of his class, teaching...

                         WIGAND
               Okay, so let's get back to it.  Alright,
               now, what we saw there was...

     INT. LAX - ECU:  LOWELL - NIGHT

     Tired, his suitcase at his feet.  We don't know if he's
     coming or going.  He's at a pay phone in the more-deserted-
     than-not airport.

                         LOWELL
                   (into phone)
               They cancelled the six o'clock.
                   (beat)
               I don't know why.  I'm on the 8:10.  I
               should be home...9:30.  I'll see you
               then.  Love ya'.  Bye...

     He hangs up and ambles over to a lounge with a few travellers
     sitting in it.

                         MIKE WALLACE
               "CBS Management wouldn't let us broadcast
               our original story and our interview with
               Wigand because they were worried about
               the possibility of a multi-billion dollar
               lawsuit against us for tortious
               interference...  But now things have
               changed."

     INT. JEFFREY WIGAND'S APARTMENT, LOUISVILLE - NIGHT

     A small apartment.  Jeffrey dishes out second helpings of
     pasta primavera into two pasta plates and brings them into
     the kitchenette to his girls, Deborah and Barbara.  And now
     we SEE AND HEAR the small television on the table playing "60
     Minutes" and...

                         MICHAEL MOORE
                   (on television)
               "...in my opinion, is an industry that
               has perpetrated the biggest fraud on the
               American public in history."

     Deborah looks proudly at her father.

     Wigand's gotten up and gone out of the kitchenette.  He has
     stopped for a moment around the corner in the hallway.  His
     kids can't see him.  We can.  And he watches them and his
     eyes get shiny and start to tear.  And as he stands there,
     watching his girls at the kitchen table witnessing their
     father's hard-earned "truth" on television, we realize that
     of all the audiences, his girls are the one he cares about
     most...

     INT. AIRPORT LOUNGE

     And Lowell in his moment of victory is watching his "60
     Minutes" double segment on a departure lounge television with
     his feet resting on his suitcase, next to a Chicano woman
     with two kids and her mother and an older man with a beard
     and cane.  An airport cleaner stops to watch, too.  Lowell
     glances at him...

     Unbeknownst to these viewers, arrested by the content on the
     television screen, is that the man who made it sits casually
     among them, watching his work.

     INT. LOWELL'S HOUSE, KITCHEN, BERKELEY - NIGHT

     Sharon sits at the kitchen table.  She watches in a far
     corner a small countertop television.  It's "60 Minutes," the
     full show entitled "Jeffrey Wigand, Ph.D." and on the top
     right, "PRODUCED BY LOWELL BERGMAN."  As Sharon continues
     watching the television playing on the counter, the emotional
     currents within her remaining unrevealed...

     INT. MIKE WALLACE'S STUDY - ON MIKE WALLACE - NIGHT

     watching the show.  He sees himself...

                         MIKE WALLACE
                   (to Wigand)
               "You wish you hadn't blown the whistle?"

                         WIGAND
                   (on television, hesitating)
               "There are times...I wish I hadn't done
               it.  But there are times that I feel
               compelled to do it..."
               "I've - if you asked me if I would do it
               again or if it's - do I think it's worth
               it.  Yeah.  I think it's worth it."

     Wallace, satisfied, rises to refill his glass, as...

     INT. AIRPORT LOUNGE

     Lowell watching show in airport.