"But perhaps the greatest achievement of the tobacco control movement in the last decade has been its triumph in mass media advocacy--in skillfully assuring in a hundred different ways, with a hundred different stories--that tobacco industry fraud, deceit, conspiracy, and corruption has occupied prime space and prime time in the national news media."

"But the frequency of such stories and their spotlight on industry wrongdoing owe much to the media advocacy skills of tobacco control advocates--both through strategic approaches to the news media and reinforcement through selective paid advertising."

-- Final Report, The U.S. Advisory Committee on Tobacco Policy and Public Health, July 1997

C. Everett Koop and David A. Kessler

It's clear that the media long ago abandoned any pretense of objective coverage on tobacco related issues.. Often the poor coverage is due to the laziness of news organizations that prefer rewriting press releases rather than investigating what is so accommodatingly dished out by anti-smoking special interest groups. Many outlets, however, actively advocate the policies of the anti-smokers and eagerly distort the news accordingly.

The San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper that several years ago became a public relations arm for the state supported anti-smoker special interests. It trumpets the sins of the tobacco industry while touting anti-smoker reports or studies no matter how inane. Any news that could upset the anti-smoker applicant is ignored completely.

The past two weeks have provided an excellent opportunity to watch how the Chronicle distorts the facts to please its anti-smoker patrons. The following stories and editorial address efforts to correct the ill-considered state-wide smoking ban surreptitiously passed in 1994. That law banned smoking in all workplaces including restaurants. Bars and gaming establishments were given a two-year reprieve give regulatory agencies time to develop ventilation standards.

Naturally, any establishment of ventilation standards would include a thorough examination of the dangers of secondhand smoke. Since there is no danger associated with secondhand smoke, the agencies have, naturally, refused to act, hoping the total ban will go into effect while fraudulent claims are still accepted as the truth.

A few brave legislators have acted to prevent the disaster that will befall bars and gaming establishments in California should smoking be banned. Two bills are at the center of The Chronicle's smear campaign of ensuring that California remains the show piece of a society where smokers are not tolerated.

July 10, 1997 - News Story

Greg Lucas writes the day after the Labor and Employment Committee approved the bill by 7-to-3 vote that its passage had been manipulated by the tobacco industry. He implies that the Speaker of the Assembly, Cruz Bustamante, juggled the composition of the committee to ensure the bill had enough votes to pass. In addition, one committee member, Carl Washington, is fingered as participating in vote trading, a crime that can carry a prison sentence.

Lucas fails to mention that the bill is overwhelmingly supported by the California hospitality industry. Its only opponents include organizations that financially benefit from the tobacco surtax. Those organizations are prohibited by law from lobbying on tobacco related bills. The Chronicle is silent about the illegal action of its anti-smoker allies.

July 11, 1997 - News Report

In this report, Greg Lucas invokes Watergate to smear Assemblyman Carl Washington when the historical parallel most appropriate are the tactics of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Communist witch-hunts. The message to politicians is clear: Don't mess with the wishes of the powerful anti-smoking interests.

July 11, 1997 - Editorial

A shrill screed, masquerading as an editorial, denounces the tobacco industry as the font of all evil in Sacramento. Speaker of the Assembly Cruz Bustamante is castigated for his fealty to the industry while the editors cry that the state Attorney General should investigate Assemblyman Washington for vote trading. The unproven, and unprovable, allegation that secondhand smoke kills 4,000 is trumpeted. The public is warned that the tobacco industry is again dictating policy for the state.

"The reason for the about-face [on allowing bars to permit smoking] has nothing to do with any change in circumstances or merits of the ban and everything to do with the worst aspects of the legislative process. " write the editors.

Many circumstances have changed since the smoking ban went into effect. Restaurants are going out of business throughout the state. The state's largest restaurant association has reversed its position on the smoking ban as financial losses have become painfully apparent. The study by Stanton Glantz which convinced so many politicians that banning smoking would cause no harm has been thoroughly discredited. The Congressional Research Services' evaluation of the EPA's secondhand smoke study has demolished the absurd claim that secondhand smoke kills non-smokers.

July 17, 1997 - News Report

One week after beginning his attack on Washington and Bustamante, Greg Lucas moves to the senate where, once again,he writes, the all-powerful tobacco lobby is buying politicians willing to do its dirty business. This time the target is Senator Ken Maddey who has authored a horse-racing bill that will extend smoking in bars and gaming establishments beyond 1998. The American Cancer Society is appalled and calls the bill "unfair".

What is unfair and unethical, even by the standards of journalism, is Lucas' reporting. It is one sided and not once does he seek out any of the citizens who support this bill. Not once does he talk to a smoker. As far as the Chronicle is concerned, the only players in the bar smoking bills are the anti-smokers, the politicians and the tobacco industry.

As shameful as the Chronicle's coverage is, the truly shameful aspect of all this vile print is the realization that decent Californians are to blame for the sorry state of Sacramento politics. Poll after poll confirms that the vast majority of the voters do not care if smokers are accommodated. On a list of priorities tobacco never appears. They do not want their taxes wasted on supporting parasitic organizations such as the American Cancer Society.

To end on an upbeat note, several news organization throughout the country have funded a large study to figure out why the public does not buy their product or trust what they disseminate. The answer to that can be found every day in the coverage of papers like the Chronicle. The public may dislike the tobacco industry but he loathes the media.