Philip Morris International, the world’s biggest tobacco company and the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, confirmed the veteran journalist was hired to deliver the speech at the conference called "Open Mic" held at a five star hotel in South Beach, Miami.

Also on the bill was the rapper and former Fugees star Wyclef Jean, who performed what one executive tweeted was the "world premiere" for an upcoming campaign.

Material posted on social media around the event centred around the tobacco giant's new "Unsmoke" campaign, which claims to be about promoting healthier alternatives to smoking, like vaping.

According to one senior executive who tweeted about Sopel's speech, the BBC journalist addressed the tobacco company employees about his time covering the Trump White House and also about "echo-chambers, data-based communication and the challenge to separate signal from noise & to #Unsmoke (pun intended) facts from fiction".



Across two emails to BuzzFeed News, Philip Morris International confirmed Sopel had addressed the company's staff but it was an "off the record discussion" at an "internal meeting".



"This was an internal meeting and it was an off-the-record discussion," the Philip Morris spokesperson said in the first email.

In a later email, Philip Morris said the terms around Sopel's speech were confidential: "To be clear, Jon Sopel was invited to give a keynote speech on covering the Trump White House at the Open Mic conference in Miami.

"He took no further part in the conference, and wasn’t asked to endorse anything, nor did he. The terms on which we engage speakers are confidential."

The involvement of such a senior BBC journalist at a closed-door event for a tobacco company raises several questions for the British public broadcaster, including whether the BBC knew about the speech, the content of Sopel's speech, and how much he was paid for the appearance.

A BBC spokesperson declined to say how much Sopel had been paid to appear at the event. Responding to a list of questions from BuzzFeed News, the spokesperson said only that the corporation's journalists were permitted to appear in external speaking arrangements.

“The BBC’s editorial guidelines allow BBC journalists to carry out external speaking, or chairing, engagements as long as they maintain objectivity and impartiality.”

It is understood that BBC journalists are allowed to accept payments for these appearances.

Sopel declined to comment.