Appendix A
Litigation-Heavy Sample
In LexisNexis Academic, we selected “General News” and “Major Papers” libraries and
entered in the first search-term box the expression “tobacco or cigarette” and restricted the search to “Headline, Lead Paragraph(s), Terms;” we connected via “AND” the expression “lawsuit or litig! or sue! or suit” and restricted that second search to “Headline, Lead Paragraph(s), Terms.” We searched only in The New York Times in each of the following periods except for period 4:
Period / Range of Years / Total Hits in LexisNexis Academic / Articles Coded1 / 1984-1987 / 166 / 47
2 / 1988-1993 / 401 / 63
3 / 1994-1996 / 891 / 61
4* / 1997-2000 / 1999 / 60
5 / 2001-2005 / 646 / 59
Totals / 1984-2005 / 4103 / 290
* See table below for subdivisions in Period 4.
As will be apparent, we twice coded more than the 60 articles for which we were aiming and twice fell short of our aim.
We divided Period 4 [1997-2000] into three periods to achieve a bit more “coverage” in coding:
Period / Range of Years / Total Hits in LexisNexis Academic / Articles Coded4a / 1997 / 739 / 27
4b / 1998 / 596 / 18
4c / 1999-2000 / 664 / 15
Totals / 1997-2000 / 1999 / 60
Litigation-Light Sample
In LexisNexis Academic, we selected “General News” and “Major Papers” libraries and
entered in the first search-term box the expression “tobacco or cigarette” and restricted the search to “Headline, Lead Paragraph(s), Terms;” we connected via “AND” the expression “health or cancer or risk” and restricted that second search to “Headline, Lead Paragraph(s), Terms;” finally, we connected via “AND NOT” the expression “lawsuit or litig! or sue! or suit” and left the search unrestricted by specifying “Full Text."
We searched only in The New York Times.
Results were sorted by LexisNexis Academic with “most relevant” hits first. The first 60 codable items in each of the eras defined below, if deemed by the graduate research associate to relate to regulation or restraint of tobacco, nicotine, cigarettes, or similar products, were directed to coders and yield the data.
Period / Range of Years / Total Hits in LexisNexis Academic / Articles Coded1 / 1984-1987 / 531 / 60
2 / 1988-1993 / 923 / 60
3 / 1994-1996 / 807 / 61
4 / 1997-2000 / 855 / 60
5 / 2001-2005 / 611 / 55
Totals / 1984-2005 / 3727 / 296