BP10.1
SMOKE
SIGNALS
The Tobacco Control Media Handbook
By
Advocacy Institute
Washington, DC
CONTENTS
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..3
How to Use Smoke Signals……………………………………………………………..6
Part I: Gaining Media Attention…………………………….…………………………7
Strategy No.1: Opportunism…………………………….……………………. 7
Strategy No. 2: Health News……………………….…………………………12
Strategy No. 3: Shaming the Industry’s Allies………………………………..14
Strategy No. 4: Getting Bonus Audiences with Public Service
Announcements and Counter Commercials………….………………………..16
Part II: Capturing the Symbols of Debate…………………………………………….18
Symbol No. 1: Not Proven.…………...………………………………………20
Symbol No. 2: Everything Causes Cancer……………………………………22
Symbol No. 3: Freedom of Speech……………………………………………23
Symbol No. 4: Freedom of Choice…………………………………………....25
Symbol No. 5: Smokers’ Rights………………………………………………26
Symbol No. 6: Public Civility…….…………………………………………..27
Symbol No. 7: Maturity, Sophistication, Liberation………………………….28
Symbol No. 8: Liberation……………………………………………………..29
Symbol No. 9: Everybody Knows……………………………………………30
Symbol No. 10: Economic Benefits…………………………………………..31
Symbol No. 11: Regulations Don’t Work…………………………………….32
INTRODUCTION
Why a tobacco control handbook devoted to media strategies?
The public media, by design or not, play a critical role in influencing both the smoking behavior of individuals and the actions of government policymakers.
In most countries, most people are at least vaguely aware that smoking carries some risk. But that vague awareness is barely a first step. There remain a series of critical educational and motivational tasks that the media must perform, among them.
- to educate the public about the severity of the risks of smoking, the susceptibility of every smoker and the health benefits of quitting;
- to educate the public about the health risks of involuntary (or “passive”) smoking;
- to alert citizens and policy makers to the injurious public policies that promote smoking, including unrestricted advertising and promotion of cigarettes and unrestrained smoking in public areas and the workplace;
- to respond to and counteract the propaganda and disinformation campaigns of the tobacco industry;
- to counter the economic and political influence of the tobacco industry, which thwarts the adoption of remedial policies; and
- to reinforce evolving social nonsmoking norms.
Of course, the media don’t necessarily view any much less all of these tasks as their responsibilities. And those media that are dependent on tobacco companies for advertising revenues are under great pressure to resist even minimal coverage of smoking and disease. This is particularly true of media targeted to women and minorities, which are increasingly bloated with cigarette ads.
This dependence is exacerbated by the news media’s low threshold of boredom with any subject, and energetic, creative competition by the advocates of other causes, events, and issues (such as AIDS) for limited time and space.
As a result, there continues to be (1) inadequate communication of the health risks of smoking to individuals, (2) inadequate news coverage of public policy issues relating to smoking, and (3) dominance of media by cigarette advertising imagery and propaganda that perpetuates smoking norms and reinforces the legitimacy of the cigarette marketing enterprise.
But newspapers, magazines, and radio and TV stations are not without traditions of public responsibility and courage. In much of the media you will find journalists and editors indifferent to the ire of the cigarette advertisers—especially for a good story!
Hence the need - and the rewards - for uncommon wit and resourcefulness by public health advocates. The examples in this book give testimony that such wit and resourcefulness thrive throughout the world and, coupled with the terrible truth about the hazards of smoking, can breach even the most skeptical media.
This book is designed as a tool for spirited and resourceful public health advocates. It contains guidance, but it’s not a technical manual, for the strategic approach to media requires more art than technique, though both are necessary. The goal of this handbook is to stimulate and challenge the creativity and imagination of the advocate, not to prescribe rigid formulas.
Much of this book was drawn from an extraordinary workshop, sponsored by the American Cancer Society and held in Washington, D.C., in September 1985 for international tobacco control leaders. They came from Canada and Hong Kong; from Australia and Argentina; from the Sudan, and China, Singapore, Austria—from every country in which citizens have taken up the battle against the propagation and promotion of smoking. From that group, and others, came lessons and illustrations harvested from decades of campaigning to bring home to citizens and policy makers the risks of smoking, the environmental influences that sustain smoking, and individual and community remedies for the smoking epidemic.
Truly the heart of the book is a broad sampling of tested strategies and tactics for gaining access to the media with compelling, targeted messages. These strategies have been selected and displayed to stimulate the creativity of tobacco control advocates. Adapting some of these will require at least modest financial resources. But even the lone individual or small group of citizen “spark plugs” with only the resources of time, a typewriter, a telephone, and an entrepreneurial spirit will find many of these models well within reach.
Cultures, economies, political systems and media access opportunities vary widely from community to community and country to country. The flamboyant civil disobedience by courageous physicians that serves splendidly to shame those who allow themselves to be exploited by tobacco promotions in one country may offend the social mores—and be counterproductive—in other countries. But, far more often, the international workshop participants agreed that the responses of the media—and of citizens and governments—throughout the world have much in common, and that successful strategies employed on one battlefield are adaptable to most others.
How to Use Smoke Signals
This guide is divided into two parts.
Part 1 offers guidance in gaining media “access” or “coverage.” It describes compelling strategies and tactics for capturing media attention. Some of the tactics, such as print and broadcast spot “counter-commercials,” require financial resources. But most of the examples are models for gaining free media coverage.
This Part is meant for browsing. Many of the examples will not be feasible or appropriate for you. But the odds are good that several insights and examples will arrest your attention. “Aha!” you may exclaim to yourself. “We can do that - or something very much like that.”
Part II addresses symbolic, or thematic, strategies for framing the issues in the media. The tobacco industry tries to seize the media initiative with evocative symbols like “smokers’ rights” and “freedom of choice.” Part II highlights counter symbols tobacco control advocates can invoke to capture the symbolic high ground in the media—and short “media bites” or one-liners designed to seize back the good symbols.
Part II has several uses. Anyone who expects to confront a tobacco spokesperson would do well to study it carefully. You will find some “media bites” or one-liners more persuasive than others—or you may prefer your own variations. But, properly used, it can arm you with a quiver of ready, sharp arrows. You might want to carry a tabbed and marked copy to any media appearance. Some groups have also found it useful as a handy reference for those who routinely handle press inquiries.
If there is only one central lesson to be taken away from this handbook, it is this:
Don’t let journalists or tobacco spokespersons characterize you as a (“fanatical,” “arrogant,” “abusive,” hysterical”) tormentor of smokers. Smokers are the victims of the tobacco industry, not the anti-smoker. Most important, you speak for the public health of smokers and nonsmokers alike. This sense of empathy, rather than vindictiveness, toward smokers can be conveyed by your tone, demeanor, reasonableness, and especially, humor.
Part I: Gaining Media Attention
The story of smoking and disease has enjoyed a longer run in the public media than any other healthy policy issue. So it is hardly surprising that the threshold question a journalist asks (and the first question that he or she is asked by an editor or producer) is: “What’s new?” and the second is: “So what?”
No matter how important the message of smoking risks, tobacco industry perfidy, or government timidity, few will see it or hear it unless the media gatekeepers are persuaded that the message or its packaging is newsworthy—and exciting. It is unrealistic to expect journalists to share your enthusiasm for the cause you plead, but it is not unrealistic to expect a fair hearing. Remember: the journalist has other stories to write. It is up to you to demonstrate that yours is the best.
The following pages develop four broad strategies that have been used successfully by health activists to seize the attention of the media.
Strategy No. 1: Opportunism
- Riding the Crest of the Fast-Breaking Story
Opportunism is usually regarded as a less-than-respectable behavior. Not so, however, when dealing with news media “gatekeepers.” They welcome timely ideas and fresh ways of presenting information.
By opportunism, we mean being attentive to the current news environment and ready to spring forward with a comment or event that builds on a story already prominent in the news. Here are four examples of health activists operating effectively in the media simply by tying smoking issues to news headlines.
Example: American public health advertising specialist Tony Schwartz, who has made many of the American Cancer Society’s pioneering anti-smoking “counter-commercials,” has quickly responded to such frontpage events as a tragic Japan Airlines crash, the campaign to remove poisoned analgesics from supermarket shelves and the AIDS-inspired closing of gay bath houses, as “new pegs” for radio counter-commercials sometimes airing within 24 hours of the initial story, comparing these notorious events with the far greater hazards of smoking. These inexpensive radio messages themselves became the subject of massive news coverage.
Example: When New Zealand’s television service proudly announced a forthcoming Humphrey Bogart film series, New Zealand ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) requested that appropriate announcements acknowledge that Bogart’s smoking habit, portrayed in the films, eventually led to his death from lung cancer. The request itself stimulated widespread press discussion, heightening public awareness of the relationship between smoking and disease.
Example: No threat to health should ever be taken lightly. Nevertheless it is often appropriate to compare the death toll from smoking, the largest preventable form of death, with the toll from other widely feared, often avoidable, hazards. While lecturing in Australia, Dr. Stanton Glantz, President of Californians for Nonsmoker’s Rights responded to a skeptical question about the significance of the involuntary smoking risk by noting that passive smoking was killing more people in Australia than AIDS. That comparison gave headline prominence to his warnings.
Example: Through the efforts of the American Lung Association, Mrs. Barney Clark, the widow of the first artificial heart transplant patient, appeared as a surprise witness at an otherwise routine Congressional hearing on cigarette warning legislation, shortly after national news carried the dramatic story of her husband’s struggle for survival. Her words led every national news report.
B. Timing for Maximum Impact
Often it is possible to get the attention of media gatekeepers by timing the release of health information so that it adds an important new dimension to an event already in the spotlight. Here the secret rests in staying alert to upcoming opportunities, and being ready to move when the time is right.
Example: The Center for Study of Smoking Policy and Behavior at HarvardUniversity prepared a technical report providing strong theoretical support for cigarette excise tax increases. By timing its release to coincide with Congressional debate and votes on excise taxes, the Center assured that its report received maximum media exposure.
Example: New Zealand ASH responded to government warnings of a cancer causing substance in pine needles with a critique noting (with appropriate asperity) that the risks of smoking dwarfed any potential pine needle hazard.
Example: The U.S. Coalition on Smoking OR Health organized a newsworthy reception on the eve of Congressional hearings to consider new labeling legislation, featuring prominent sports and entertainment celebrities concerned about smoking. Later the Coalition organized a media campaign to coincide with the effective date of the new warnings labels.
C. Turning the Tables on the Tobacco Industry
The tobacco industry’s overblown public relations, advertising and lobbying extravaganzas provide excellent targets for counterattacks. The tobacco industry spends the money, but the health activist who seizes such opportunities carries the day in the media.
Example: When the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company bought advertising space to present a distorted view of the evidence on smoking and heart disease, the U.S. Coalition on Smoking or Health successfully petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to prosecute Reynolds for deceptive advertising. The petition, and each subsequent stage of the FTC proceedings, brought critical media attention of Reynolds’ distortions.
Example:Philip Morris was able to persuade British courts to ban a documentary, Death in the West that exposed the health miseries of real smoking cowboys. Californians for Nonsmokers’ Rights obtained a copy of the film, and skillfully exploited its new value in the U.S. The documentary was powerful enough in its own right, but Philip Morris’ strenuous efforts to suppress the documentary enhanced its news value.
Example: Alan Blum, founder of DOC (Doctors Ought to Care), monitors efforts by tobacco companies to infiltrate women’s and minority groups. His research has led to a series of exposes and columns in U.S. newspapers, followed by commentary and testimony by Blum himself
Example: Epidemiologist Virginia Ernster of the University of California School of Medicine has attracted wide media attention with a dramatic slide show illustrating and unmasking five decades of cigarette advertising designed to make smoking a symbol of women’s progress and freedom.
Example: Alert health activists make news by exposing tobacco company behavior that violates the industry’s advertising code. Anti-smoking activist Simon Chapman effectively publicized Salem’s sponsorship of Malaysian Break Dance contest featuring what appeared to be 9 to 14 years-olds. The Canadian Non-smokers’ Right Association exposed cigarette billboards close to schools—in direct violation of the industry’s minimal code of self-regulation. In the U.S., the press obtained a “leaked” Federal Trade Commission report disclosing internal tobacco company documents suggesting a deliberate strategy of attracting teenagers and “downplaying” the risks of smoking. The television program “20/20” featured tobacco companies distributing free samples to children.
Example:Time and again, the citizen lobby, Common Cause, gains media attention simply by publicizing the latest tabulations of tobacco industry contributions and generous honoraria to members of Congress.
Example:When Hong Kong was considering restrictions on cigarette advertising, the industry imported “expert witnesses” from all corners of the world to prove that cigarette advertising had no impact on consumption. But the Hong Kong news media alerted by Dr. Judith Mackay and an informal international brigade of health activists, exposed distortions and misrepresentations by the industry’s witnesses.
D. Using Wit to Turn the Tables
If your timely response to a newsworthy controversy also has wit and style, so much the better. It can give journalists a lively “lead” for their stories.
Example: Former U.S. Health Secretary Joseph Califano, reviewing new data showing lung cancer overtaking breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer death among women, summarized the conclusion with a headline grabbing line, “Women who smoke like men, die like men.”
Example: International tobacco control activist David Simpson gained headlines and the lead in the evening news with his inspired comment that the British government’s award to the Rothman Tobacco Company for excellence in export promotion was “…like awarding the Croft’s prize (famous national dog show) to a dog with rabies.”
Example: When the British cigarette brand, John Player, sought to enhance its image of elegance by sponsoring a find art contest, British ASH arranged to enter into the contest a grim—but powerful—portrait of an emaciated lung cancer victim. Having unhinged the contest managers, who provoked media attention by barring the portrait, British ASH got additional attention by awarding the portrait its own “John Slayer” award.
(See, also, many of the suggested media “bites” in Part II.)
E. Exploiting the Empathy Factor
Tobacco companies pay large fees to exploit real or synthetic smoking celebrities, confident the public will identify with them. Health advocates have an important advantage: they don’t have to pay anyone, or create artificial heroes and heroines.