THE SEATTLE TIMES: WILLINGLY AND KNOWINGLY MANIPULATING AND SUPPRESSING INFORMATION

Editorial by Norman Kjono

How can a newspaper claim to support children not smoking when it promotes the interests of an enterprise that has systematically created more youth smokers? By what ethical reporting standard does a media organization believe that teaching young people they are immediately addicted to cigarettes can possibly encourage children to leave cigarettes alone? And on what moral foundation does any business stand when it preserves its own financial interests through the now-well-established trend of more children smoking?

If one earnestly believes that tobacco is the only product that when used as directed kills they cannot in good conscience support the tobacco control enterprise. One cannot support tobacco control because its demonstrated fifteen year performance has been to produce more children who smoke, and its demonstrated behavior has been to craft optimum revenue streams from a stabilized and expanded nicotine source consumer base.

Support what you wish, but please do not attempt to convince normal people that tobacco control is about children's well-being. When special-interests craft programs that produce more youth smokers and then set about lining their pockets with optimum revenues from the new "addicts" they have created that behavior speaks for itself. Those who support that behavior also make a statement: The genuine well-being of other people's children takes a distant back seat to the reality of bucks today.

A free press is one of our most important bulwarks against government misconduct. Because we as a people value our freedoms we generally assume that those with the press respect the rights of a free people, as well. We expect, rightly so, that media reporting is a balanced synthesis of views that presents honest and reliable information.

But what if some news organizations wilfully suppress and withhold material information, and they do so with knowledge that their views support their own interests rather than the public who relies on them? What if public trust is violated to promote support for programs that reward media's own hidden interests? And do elected representatives have a lawful, moral, or ethical right to rely in news information they have a reasonable basis to believe is wilfully manipulated?

In our opinion at FORCES media organizations who violate public trust in objective reporting to advance their own agenda merit the "YELLOW JACKASS JOURNALISM" award. This week's winner is The Seattle Times, long known for its manipulated reporting on tobacco issues.

On Friday March 30, 2001 The Times published an editorial "Smoking, Death and Taxes." The editorial was an advocacy piece that promoted this year's laundry list of tobacco control demands, initiatives, and programs. Apparently tobacco control activists cannot dream up a tax, mandate, or youth addiction program that is too bizarre for The Seattle Times. We will not dwell on The Times' editorial further, the work speaks for itself. Those who need an excuse to buy into that agenda will do so regardless. If one is earnestly interested in children's well-being here is not much point in arguing The Times' view. Based on tobacco control's past and current behavior, The Times appears to support more children smoking in the name of "Saving the Children." That is sufficient to ignore them as a credible news organization.

Responsible parents, honest legislators, and FORCES members invite The Seattle Times to explain its contradictory editorial discretion standards and to justify its news reporting standards.

The Times' March 30 editorial was published to promote support for tobacco control legislation presently pending in the state senate and house. What is important for readers and members of the Washington State Legislature to be aware of is that The Seattle Times, through its Executive Editor Michael A. Fancher, has made an affirmative decision to suppress, to refuse to publish, investigate, or report oninformation that contradicts its lock-step support of tobacco control. It has also made a decision to suppress information that reveals blatant economic and professional conflicts of interest among those who craft and promote the interests of the Washington tobacco control enterprise.

The Times' may choose to suppress such information, but elected representatives have an affirmative duty to parents and consumers to independently consider authenticated facts. The Seattle Times' affirmative decision to suppress information does not equal elected representatives' right to exclude considering issues that are proven to be material to its legislation and of merit. That is particularly true when issues raised are based on confirmed and validated facts.

Notable among the willful exclusions from The Times' coverage of these issues is its refusal to investigate, report on, or publish information regarding millions paid to tobacco control activists in the State of Washington by pharmaceutical nicotine distributors, notably NICOTROL's Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and/or NICORETTE's SmithKline Beecham. The Times' was made aware of those facts in writing as early as March 1998, resisted reporting on them for more than a year, and then, as addressed in Michael A. Fancher's April 28, 1999 letter (click here too), affirmatively refused in writing to address the subjects raised or consider those issues further. The Seattle Times has never published any substantive information regarding blatant and multi-million-dollar tobacco control pharmaceutical conflicts of interest.

As of its recent and widely promoted series of articles regarding conflicts of interest at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center ("Uninformed Consent") The Times was slanted and incomplete in its reporting. Even when ostensibly reporting about conflicts of interest - a subject at the heart of tobacco control issues - The Seattle Times appears to suppress information, or at the least abruptly end its story when it leads to tobacco control conflicts.

The Seattle Times correctly reported in its series of articles that Steven Gillis left The Hutch, and was a founder of Corixa Corp., located in Seattle. The context of that section in The Times' articles was conflicts of interest that allegedly made millions for doctors associated with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, through stock ownership.

What The Seattle Times did not report about The Hutch, Mr. Gillis, and Corixa Corp. is more telling of lethal conflicts of interests that the whole series published by The Times:

1. June 22, 1999 The Seattle Post-Intelligencer published "Seattle Firm's Anti-Cancer Ally: A Tobacco Giant," byline Tom Paulson. The article disclosed a $40 million grant from Japan Tobacco to Corixa Corp. The grant was awarded to secure rights to Corixa Corp. immunological treatments for lung cancer. Readers may recall that Japan Tobacco bought the international rights to R.J. Reynolds tobacco brand names for a reported $7 billion-plus.

2. Mr. Paulson's article included quotes from several Seattle area tobacco control luminaries, including Dr. Michael Lippman of Washington DOC, who characterized the agreement with Japan Tobacco as "obscene." The Seattle Times published a Letter to the Editor in June 1988 where Drs. Lippman and Jaffe of Washington DOC aggressively promoted the idea that persons who smoke are addicted to tobacco, to the point where they characterized convenience stores that sell cigarettes as "crack houses." If one is addicted to tobacco the have no choice but to smoke.

3. At the time the June 1999 Japan Tobacco grant was awarded to Corixa Corp. the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center was completing its fifteen year, $15 million study of youth smoking in several Seattle area school districts, a program focused on children as young as third grade. The study was reportedly funded by the National Cancer Institute. The Seattle Times reported on that youth anti-smoking campaign in its December 20, 2000 article under the headline "Smoking Prevention Fails A Big Test." The programs senior analyst was quoted as saying they would go back to the drawing board with a new program.

4. June 16, 1999 The Wall Street Journal published an article "Pharmacia To Acquire Sugen And Its Promising Cancer Drugs." The article reported that Pharmacia & Upjohn (licensor of Nicorette and Nicotrol) bought Sugen, Inc. for $780 million. Pharmacia acquired Sugen due to its interest in the biotech's development of a treatment for colorectal and lung cancers, SU5416.

5. The DrKoop.com Web site reported last year that SmithKline had entered into a strategic alliance with Corixa Corp.

What do the above facts say when put together? To us they are a clear statement that private foundations, medical doctors, and professional activists will use government funds to create and implement programs that fail to deter youth smoking; being fully aware that their programs fail to achieve results promoted they will persist with those programs, thereby producing more future adult smokers from youth populations; as an integral part of tobacco control programs professional activists will aggressively teach children that they are addicted to tobacco, and that they therefore must continue to smoke (or use pharmaceutical nicotine); and then the whole incestuous pack of them will use inside information gathered from government funded programs to invest hundreds of millions into ownership of, and strategic alliances for, medical treatments for lung cancer. From third grade to the grave pharmaceutical nicotine sponsored addiction peddlers apparently have children and consumers pouring money into their special-interest pockets.

In our view it simply doesn't get more cold-blooded than that.

And in our view it does not get more irresponsible than The Seattle Times suppressing material information such as the above, while editorially promoting the interests of those who engage in that activity. Why did The Seattle Times not report the Corixa Corp. story in full?

Why would The Seattle Times engage in such Jackass Journalism? Ask them. We suspect the greater part of the answer is quantified in terms of annual advertising revenues to The Times from pharmaceuticals such as SmithKline Beecham, Johnson & Johnson, Glaxo Wellcome, and Pharmacia & Upjohn. We also expect that media support for such a reporting travesty is defined in terms of hundreds of millions in advertising each year funded by the tobacco "settlement."

Bucks apparently talk far louder than children's health when it comes to responsible media reporting on tobacco issues at The Seattle Times. And through their present editorial discretion standards The Seattle Times overlooks one important reality: Parents and consumer have the right to decide for themselves about issues, and to do so based on honest reporting. By manipulating what facts it reports, The Seattle Times presumes to decide for parents what they should believe. It should be no surprise that what The Seattle Times decides parents should believe also supports The Times own interests.

Members of the Washington legislature who wish to rely on the editorial opinions of The Seattle Times are free to do so, of course. By doing so, however, they loudly proclaim through their behavior their own weakness of intellect and lack of integrity. Washington constituents rightfully expect better from their elected representatives.

There is a free press - but one seldom finds it anymore on news stands today, however. Judging by The Seattle Times - and its suppression of information - when one picks up a newspaper today, one also lifts a special-interest baggage hidden behind the headlines.

And that's a heavy load for kids.