BlowingAway the Smoke: A Series of Advanced Media Advocacy Advisories for Tobacco Control Advocates
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A Series of Advanced Media Advocacy Advisories
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Blowing Away the Smoke:
A Series ofAdvanced Media Advocacy Advisories
for Tobacco Control Advocates
Revised Series
September 1998
A Project of the Advocacy Institute
For more mformation, please contact:
The Advocacy Institute
1707 L Street NW #400
Tel. 202-659-8475
Fax 202-659-8484
e-mail: aiinf6@advocacy.org
or
The ASSIST Coordinating Center
Tel, 301-592-8600
•
Blowing Away the Smoke:
A Series ofAdvanced Media A dvocacy Advisories
for Tobacco Control Advocates
Revised Series
September 1998
A Project of the Advocacy Institute
For more information, please contact:
The Advocacy Institute
1707 L Street NW #400
Washington, DC 20009
Tel. 202-659-8475
Fax 202-659-8484
e-mail: aiinfo@advocacy.org
or
The ASSIST Coordinating Center
Tel. 301-592-8600
A*-.-*.*.-*.
•
Blowing Away the Smoke:
A Series ofAdvanced Media Advocacy Advisories
for Tobacco Control Advocates
A Project of the Advocacy Institute
Revised Series September 1998
An Introduction to the Series by Mike Pertschuk
TTfhoever wants to fight lies and ignorance today, whoever wants to speak truth, must surmount at
r r leastfive difficulties. He must have the courage to speak the truth when it is everywhere stifled;
the intelligence to recognize it when it is everywhere hidden; the art to make it manageable like a
weapon; the judgment to choose who will know how to make it effective; andfinally the guile to make
them understand it.
—Bertolt Brecht, 1935
WhyWeNeedT^ese^
Tf you've been working on tobacco control advocacy in this country, in this decade, and
A you happen to pick up these advisories, you may be surprised, wondering:
More tobacco stories? You've got to be kidding! Tobacco issues get more ink
day in and day out than just about all other public health issues combined!
Better tobacco stories? C'mon. The media trumpet every new study linking
tobacco to yet another malady; headline every whistleblower who stepsforward to
unmask yet another industry cover up; beat up on politicians who take tobacco
money and do the tobacco lobby's dirty work
"Let a political candidate even mumble something about his doubts that smoking
is addictive, and the press will eat him alive for a month!
"Why more media advocacy guides? Who needs them? "
We all need them. These six advisories are designed to tell you why and to give you
practical suggestions about how you can work with your coalitions and the media to
advocate for tobacco control policies.
Advanced Media Advocacy Introduction September 1998
The Six Advanced Media Advocacy Advisories
Advisory No.l: Overcoming New Barriers to Media Coverage
Advisory No.2: By the Numbers: A Guide to the Tactical Use of Statistics
for Positive Policy Change
Advisory No.3: Getting the Message Right: Using Formative Research
Advisory No.4: Lessons from the Frontlines: Tobacco Control
Media Advocacy in Communities of Color
Advisory No.5: Framing for Access: How to Get the Media’s Attention
Advisory No.6: Framing for Content: Shaping the Debate on Tobacco
The Role, Nature, and Promise of Media Advocacy
I ^here s no question that advocates have made tremendous advances against the public
-L health scourge of tobacco. All across the country, communities have empowered
themselves through strategic advocacy efforts to fight for—and win—new tobacco
prevention policies. Even at the Federal level, the government is finally beginning to meet
its responsibilities to protect children from this deadly, addictive drug.
We have achieved these successes in large measure through media advocacy—an essential
working tool of public health advocates. Media coverage of tobacco has grown from one
or two national stories a day in 1990 to six or seven each day today. Put simply, no
significant tobacco prevention policy has been or can ever be enacted without the support
of a strong advocacy campaign; and, no such campaign in this day and age can succeed
without a strategic, integrated media component. Media advocacy is about fighting in the
public policy arena for policy change, that is the role of media advocacy.
Here are several ways of looking at what media advocacy does and how it works:
• Media advocacy is the strategic approach to mass media taken by community
based groups to help advance a social or public policy initiative.
• Media advocacy works primarily to develop and shape ("frame") news stories in
ways which build support for public policies. This approach is distinct from
public health education or social marketing efforts, which seek to use the media
to help persuade viewers and readers to change their individual health
behaviors.
2
Advanced Media Advocacy Introduction September 1998
• Media advocacy seeks to build the capability of community leaders to treat
strategic media initiatives as an integral component of community-focused issue
campaigns. In contrast, the public relations approach tends to actually conduct
media relations for client groups without building the capability of community
leaders themselves.
• Media advocacy tells stories that attract the interest of the media and build
support for the policy objectives of community-based groups.
• In developing media advocacy strategies, community groups learn to craft their
media messages collaboratively, and as a result the messages are grounded both
in the values they stand for and in the policy objectives they seek. Other
approaches tend to use messages developed by outside experts, based on
polling and focus group testing alone without regard to the broad values and
goals of the group.
Media advocates view the media as a resource that must be approached opportunistically
and pursued aggressively. Because there is almost always a force countering our policy
goals, media advocacy requires both affirmative policy advocacy and strong counteraction
to opposition strategies and tactics. In fact, a media advocacy campaign resembles a
political campaign in that the competing forces continuously react to the evolving media
environment, leading stories, unexpected events, and breaking news: that is the nature of
media advocacy.
While there is a role for paid media (i.e., advertising) in media advocacy, "unpaid media"
(i.e., the news media) is the prime arena for contesting public policies. So media
advocates make it their business to know the news media's business well—what makes a
good story and when; what the journalist needs from the advocate to cover an issue well;
and what types of stories are most likely to be covered. Advocates might rail privately at
the flaws and biases ofjournalists and other media gatekeepers, yet they understand that
they must work within the reality of the media where profit is a primary guiding force.
Tobacco control advocates have used media advocacy strategies to gamer coverage of
tobacco issues from a policy and social perspective, highlighting the role of tobacco
industry advertising, marketing, public relations, and political activities in maintaining and
promoting tobacco use, especially among youth. By focusing attention on this public
dimension of the tobacco problem, advocates have achieved many sound public health
policies at the local, state, and national levels: that is the promise of media advocacy.
3
Blowing Away the Smoke:
A Series ofAdvanced Media Advocacy Advisories
for Tobacco Control Advocates
A project of the Advocacy Institute
Overcoming New Barriers to Media Coverage
Advisory No. 1
Mebia Barriers to PublicHealthProgress
ven with the movement's great achievements, the tobacco wars are far from won.
Public support for tobacco prevention policies is broad but not deep; many in the
media and the public, despite the flood of tobacco media coverage, do not see the
need for strong new policies. Yet, we know that there is much more to be accomplished
in public policy: bold excise tax increases, strong advertising restraints, effective youth
access policies, truly smokefree workplaces and public places.
Tobacco control advocates rely on media coverage to foster and deepen the public's
commitment to tobacco issues and increase their understanding of the most effective
solutions—strong tobacco prevention policies, not individual behavior change. But at the
same time that we are just beginning to reach the public, reporters are becoming jaded on
the tobacco issue. One prominent national television commentator told us: "Our
newsroom is divided between those who leap at any press conference on a tobacco issue
like a plaintiffs lawyers to an accident—they can't get enough stories to stick it to the
tobacco companies —and the rest of us, who weren't that excited about tobacco stories in
the first place, now think we've done tobacco to death!" She added that those who are
sick and tired of tobacco stories are in the majority and are increasing in number.
Why is this happening? How can reporters and the public declare that the battle against
tobacco is over and tobacco is "old news"—even as the death toll continues to rise? The
reality is that the media successes we have experienced so far may have generated new
kinds of barriers to gaining news coverage.
The solution: We need to become more sophisticated media advocates in order to respond
to and face this new challenge. First, we need to identify the current barriers to media
coverage and the factors that prevent tobacco control advocates from gamering frequent,
policy-focused coverage of tobacco issues. Then, we can catapult over these barriers!
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.l September 1998
Each potential tobacco control story, and especially each television story, faces three
fundamental barriers to coverage—a "triple challenge" that can weaken or obstruct the
public health message carried by tobacco control advocates: (1) episodic reporting, (2)
perception that health is a purely individual responsibility, (3) libertarian values.
Barrier#!: "Episodic” (vs. "Thematic") Reporting
I
first lesson for tobacco control advocates is a lesson we know but never learn:
± Today, public issue agendas are largely determined by television news stories and
how those stories are told. Yes, newspapers and magazines still have an important impact
on the attentive public, that is, active citizens and opinion leaders. But 65% of Americans
now get most of their news—and derive much of their understanding and even their
feelings about public issues—from commercial television.1
Ironically, print coverage may be important largely to the extent that broadcast producers
and reporters read the leading national papers avidly. Broadcast journalists take their cues
from them—from the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los
Angeles Times—on just what stories they should cover. When the print media highlight
tobacco industry activities that support and promote tobacco use, and explain public
policy solutions to reduce tobacco's negative social impact, broadcast coverage follows.
The problem is that television stories usually do not point to the root causes of problems,
nor do they point to institutional sources for solutions. Stories that do have a systemic,
policy focus are called "thematic stories. "2 A thematic story attempts to capture the
systemic nature of a problem, portraying individuals, systems, and outcomes as connected.
In contrast, television is drawn to self-contained stories of individual behavior. These
episodic stories seem to be determined by the strengths or weaknesses of those directly
involved, to the exclusion of larger social forces.
TV cameras and TV producers are drawn by the very nature of the medium to stories that
tend to be event oriented, specific, and concrete. They use compelling pictures to tell a
short, simple, and personal story."3 Such stories are easier to tell than thematic stories,
which require at least modest research, and, for most viewers, are less appealing to watch.
If we were physicians diagnosing the malady of television news, we might label it
"episodic myopia"—the inability to see beyond the events occurring before our noses.
1 Media Matters, Institute on News and Social Problems, 1995.
Shanto Iyengar, Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues, University of
Chicago, 1987.
1994^ ^^UaCk Ct
^edia Advocacy and Public Health: Powerfor Prevention, Sage Publications,
2
A dvanced Media A dvocacy A dvisory No. 1 September 1998
And this malady leads to serious malfunctions in the body politic: confusion,
disorientation, and blurred vision about the impact of social forces and public policy on
individual behavior.
Because of the current media environment, it doesn't require a tobacco industry/media
conspiracy to end up with mostly episodic tobacco stories. Absent the right kinds of
media advocacy efforts by tobacco prevention advocates, a TV report on increased
teenage smoking will focus on stories of individual teenage smokers, rather than how the
tobacco industry targets its marketing and advertising at teenagers.
For example, a TV story about under-age youth access to cigarettes might well follow a
group of early-teen youths buying cigarettes from vending machines or glassy-eyed store
clerks. What viewers will likely take away, Professor Iyengar warns us, is a vision of
individual kids beating the system and of naive (but not necessarily typical) store clerks.
No explanations are given in this account of the industry's practices that support, even
encourage, illegal cigarette sales to youths, or of their efforts to kill strong youth access
laws. Thus, the viewer is likely to come away from such stories confirmed in the belief or
prejudice that teenagers get cigarettes and smoke because, well, they’re teenagers—and
that’s just what you expect from teenagers! Such viewers are not likely to come away
believing that vending machine bans, or stronger licensing regulations, or advertising
restrictions are sorely needed, or are even promising solutions.
This type of episodic coverage lets both the tobacco industry and the government off the
hook.
3
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.l September 1998
Barrier#!:
Health Perceived as a Purely Individual Responsibility
1be primary source ofsocial and health problems, it is assumed, resides in individuals'
J. personal behavior or biological makeup. In the case ofpersonal behavior, blame is easily
assigned; in the latter case, the individual is not culpable but bears the stigma ofill-health or
disability. Both cases, however, deem social, political, or economic factors irrelevant; rather,
health problems are a matter ofindividual choice or biological predisposition.4
T)ublic health researchers note the tendency, especially among Americans and American
A media, to treat health issues as primarily problems of individuals. This attitude poses a
serious threat to the long-term success of tobacco control policies.
In the past—and very possibly in the future in the absence of new tobacco prevention
media advocacy strategies—the news has focused on tobacco exclusively as a health risk,
producing stories emphasizing smoking as an individual behavior. For example, the news
media are obsessed with reporting scientific discoveries that identify cancer as caused by
"bad genes," a story that detracts from one of the key cancer-causing agents: the tobacco
industry. By focusing on "bad genes" rather than the tobacco industry, the news media are
ignoring the fact that tobacco use is addictive and that the addiction is promoted by an
agent that stands to make millions of dollars from this addiction.
Americans are drawn to such individualistic explanations because these ideas are relatively
simple and readily grasped. They do not require lengthy, complex analysis. And that’s
precisely what television news is looking for! So Americans' predisposition to perceive
health risks as problems of individuals reinforces the predisposition of television
newscasters to treat all stories as "episodic," as simply stories of individuals and their
problems.
Once again, the tobacco companies and the government are off the hook.
4 Ibid., p. 8.
4
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.l September 1998
Barrier #3: The Ascendancy of Libertarian Values
W/’hen Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler persuaded
V V President Clinton to back strong new FDA regulations to curb tobacco advertising
and marketing targeted at young people, the tobacco industry's public relations machine
promptly unrolled reams of the crude, anti-government libertarian rhetoric that seems to
work well for most corporate lobbies these days. Their messages were similar to these.
"President Clinton is once again giving federal bureaucrats the power to tell states,
cities, parents, and the private sector how to do their jobs."
"Tobacco products are already over-regulated, with more than nine federal
agencies currently regulating tobacco and all 50 states having tobacco youth access
laws on the books."
"This government power grab should send a cold shudder through all American
businesses and consumers. Today's government villain is tobacco. Tomorrow,
chocolate, caffeine, or cholesterol could be the FDA's next convenient foe."
"Big Brother has again chosen a federal approach to family and local problems."
It is not an accident that the tobacco industry’s public relations strategists have abandoned
their decades-long effort to deny the scientific case against tobacco. Not that they have
openly embraced the scientific verdict; rather, they have ardently sought to change the
subject from the health risks of tobacco use, and the need for responsive public policies, to
the dangers of excessive government involvement in our lives.
This libertarian alarm is sounded hourly by the tobacco lobby because these messages
resonate powerfully with Americans and dovetail perfectly with episodic media coverage:
A progressive perspective regards social justice as the foundation of public health.
The larger society, however, resonates more closely with principles of market
justice...market justice is based on key assumptions that largely determine the
acceptable range of approaches to public health problems. For example, notions of
rugged individualism, self-determination, strong individual control and
responsibility, limited individual obligation to the collective good, and limited
government involvement in social activity are cornerstones of the market justice
ethic.5
5 Ibid., p. 7.
5
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No. 1 September 1998
This is why the tobacco industry enthusiastically supports those Washington think tanks
that heartily embrace the free-market, libertarian political philosophy, it leads to a focus on
individual responsibility and excludes government intervention.
Again, not tobacco companies, not government.
Tn sum, these three barriers "episodic" story telling, the American predisposition to
-L treat all health risks as individually determined, and the power of libertarian rhetoric—
strengthen and reinforce one another to keep many tobacco stories out of the news media.
Those stories that are covered usually take the focus away from public health and the need
for public action and institutional policies. So even as coverage increases, public interest
in tobacco prevention can wane. Eventually, the media and the public will simply turn
away.
That is the real threat to better tobacco policies. The tobacco industry is rich in financial,
political, economic, philanthropic, and public relations resources; once the spotlight of
media attention fades, the tobacco lobby will be free to operate where it works best—in
the dark. Strong laws now in place, like the FDA rules and local clean indoor air
ordinances, will be undone or overridden by stealth lobbying in the shadows of state
capitols.
If we fail to build and improve our media advocacy skiUs to deal in this sophisticated
media environment, we will be eclipsed by the tobacco lobby's ever-growing media
resources and expertise. The tobacco prevention movement will be regarded by 21st
century historians as a quaint interruption in the centuries-long success of tobacco
marketers in the unrestrained exploitation of the marketing potential of a legal, addictive
drug.
But we are moving forward. We have come a long way since 1988, when the National
Cancer Institute released its Media Strategiesfor Tobacco Control guide, and even 1994,
when Media Advocacy and Public Health, the "bible" of public health media advocacy
theory and practice, was published. New academic research can shed practical light on
our media advocacy efforts: political science media effects research, cognitive linguistics
research, public health communications research, formative research (polling and focus
group message development), research on communicating with statistics, social
psychology, and other relevant published research.
Meanwhile, in the last few years, tobacco control advocates all over the country have
refined and sharpened their media advocacy techniques—their knowledeable approaches
6
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.l September 1998
to journalists, their use of polling and focus group research to help shape more resonant
messages, their ability to make a newsworthy silk purse out of a sow's ear of dull data.
And we have all learned much, much more than we ever wanted to know about the
tobacco industry's media strategies and tactics! In so doing, we have gotten far better at
turning the tables on the industry and using their own tactics to develop helpful media
stories for us.
There's no question that sound, energetic media advocacy will catapult us over the media's
barriers to our ultimate targets: better tobacco prevention policies and a healthier society.
Working together, we will reach those goals!
7
Blowing Away the Smoke:
A Series ofAdvanced Media Advocacy Advisories
for Tobacco Control Advocates
A Project of the Advocacy Institute
By the Numbers:
A Guide to the Tactical Use of Statistics for Positive Policy
Change
Advisory No. 2
s an advocate for policies to reduce the public health threat that tobacco poses in
our society, you know that "the numbers game" is a critical part of every battle.
Some of the clearest evidence of the need for strong tobacco control policies is
captured in statistical data. These figures are among the most powerful tools for engaging
and persuading policymakers and the media on this critical issue.
Statistics do not tell a story simply by virtue of their existence; like any other form of
information, you must craft them into clear, accurate, and compelling arguments, and use
strategically to support your position. Just as importantly, those who seek to preserve the
status quo have long since mastered the art of manipulating and distorting statistics to
promote their views, so you must be able to challenge and answer their data
This advisory (1) explains the essential steps in crafting and presenting a strong statistical
argument, (2) identifies some useful sources of tobacco-related information, and (3)
provides strategies you can use in answering the sometimes misleading statistical claims of
pro-tobacco advocates. These tools will help you use statistical data to make the honest,
fair, and reasoned arguments that will lead to stronger tobacco control policies, and better
public health.
(D Facts Don’t Speak for Themselves: ThinkStrategically
A s a tobacco control advocate, you have the facts on your side. An ever-increasing
/^number of studies, polls, and government statistics demonstrate the need for stronger
tobacco control policies. But these facts don’t speak for themselves—you must make
them speak by using them in compelling ways. This section offers strategies, tools, and
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.2 September 1998
techniques to help you use the evidence you find to make the greatest impact possible in
support of your policy objectives.
Emphasize the Social Dimension
At its heart, any tobacco policy effort is about acknowledging tobacco as a public problem
requiring & public solution. Those who fight for laws that restrict children’s access to
tobacco, for example, recognize that while personal choice may be a factor in underage
tobacco use, the social environment plays a powerful role in exposing children to the risk
of tobacco addiction. Policy changes that reduce those risks are effective responses to this
grave threat to public health.
Because reaching a public audience is so often a decisive factor in achieving new policies,
advocates must use the media strategically to draw attention to their issue and the need for
change. This practice, known as media advocacy, focuses the public’s attention and
understanding on the critical social dimension of a community’s tobacco-related problems.
(For more on media advocacy, see Advisory #1, Introduction to the Series.)
As media advocates, you face serious challenges. You must compete with many opposing
sources of information—and misinformation—and you must compete for your audience’s
attention. Most of your audience will not pay carefill attention to tobacco issues, and
much of the knowledge they do have is about individual behavior, not the societal factors
that influence that behavior. For example, when most people think of the link between
tobacco and disease, they remember an ill friend or relative ’’unlucky" enough to get sick.
The media responds to and reinforces this individual or episodic orientation by framing
stories to appeal to that orientation. But every story of one person’s tobacco-related
illness—even if it seems sympathetic to the tobacco control cause—can undermine the
viewer s understanding if it ignores the very real social sources of this private tragedy.
Research has shown that public understanding of social problems is shaped by both fact
and fiction as presented through the media and by the amount of attention given to an
issue. Many believe, for example, that tobacco use causes no more disease and death than
air pollution, AIDS, or illicit drug use. That erroneous perception derives in part from the
media's increased attention on the deceit of the tobacco industry and its decreased
attention has been paid to the enormous public health toll of tobacco use.
These patterns of thinking are so consistently reinforced in the media that it can be hard
even for committed anti-tobacco activists to keep focused on the fact that tobacco
addiction and disease result from social factors that can be changed by public policies, not
simply because of individuals making uninformed or unwise decisions.
2
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.2 September 1998
With every: media advocacy effort^ it is important to keep: asking yourself the following questions:
1. Have I highlighted the wide prevalence—-the social significance—of tobacco-related health problems?
2. Will the audience understand better how the social environment (tobacco industry promotion and
marketing, weak tobacco control policies, lax enforcement) influences the "choice” to become addicted
to tobacco—-or to be exposed to the tobacco smoke of others?
3. Have I made clear the need for policy change to address the problem, and its ability to make a
difference?
Example: The early death of a talented celebrity from a tobacco-related disease provides a newsworthy
opportunity for a report on the dangers of tobacco use. Focusing on the loss of a single individual would
only reinforce the audience’s view that the death was an isolated incident. To make the story reflect the
social context of a tobacco-related death, the media advocate must work with the media contact to put into
perspective the role of industry promotion and early addiction in tobacco use and disease.
■
One effective way to do this, while keeping the "hook” that makes the story appealing to the media, is to
note the age at which the celebrity took up smoking, along with anv comments he or she might have made
about finding smoking glamorous. This can be linked with the efforts of the tobacco industry to replace
its dying customers—including the celebrity—by promoting cigarettes to children. This effort to develop
new customers thus sows the seeds for society to lose hundreds of its.future talented individuals
Forgetfor a moment about [Leonard] Bernstein fs music. Forget about "West Side Story" and
"Candide".,. Bernstein is dead which means that as a smoker he has to be replaced.... So, in that
spirit, the cigarette lobbyists were down at City Hall yesterday complaining about a bill that
would make it tougherfor kids to use cigarette vending machines.
You can understand that, can't you? Keep the vending machines awayfrom the kids andyou might lose
the opportunity ofhooking a child on nicotine and thus replacing the departed Bernstein,
— Bob Herbert, "Cigs Need New Lenny," New York Daily News, October 16, 1990,
Crafta Strong Statistical Argument
Fortunately, good statistical evidence, presented well, can be used in the media to make
clear the social dimension of tobacco use, and the stake that we all have in addressing the
problem. To do this successfully is no easy task. Advocates must find evidence and craft
arguments that are clear and easy to grasp; relevant, truthful, and plausible in their
implications; and attention-getting—interesting, surprising, or otherwise engaging enough
that the media will report them
3
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.2 September 1998
Advocates need to craft arguments rigorously using the research of others, including
research that may have been developed for purposes very different from tobacco control
advocacy. The challenge is to find a claim that is both appropriate to your advocacy
objective, and fully supported by evidence, so that it cannot be undermined.
Before you tell your story, be sure that it is accurate and compelling. Be sure you
understand the strengths and weaknesses of your data. For this, you will need to rely on
the statisticians who developed the data and analysis you are using.
Psychology professor Robert Abelson, in his book Statistics as Principled Argument,
developed a series of criteria for evaluating the quality of an argument made with
statistics. We have derived the following questions from Abelson’s work; you can use
them to ensure that your argument will engage your audience:
1. Have I identified facts that significantly illuminate my issue?
2. Can I clearly and specifically articulate these facts, and explain how they are
derived and supported?
3. If I am making a cause-and-effect argument, are there exceptions to it? Can I
identify them?
4. Will the facts or arguments I am presenting help to change the audience’s view
of my issue in an important way?
5. Are the facts or arguments I am presenting credible and rigorously derived?
The following techniques should help you frame an argument that will let you answer
"yes" to all of the above questions.
Stay Focused: Don ft Try to Tell Every Story
You may have found a study that provides a wide variety of interesting data—for
example, an analysis of the numbers and kinds of tobacco ads found in proximity to
schools, and the kinds of stores and signs that display them. All of this information may
be useful to you in various aspects of your policy work, but for any given effort, keep in
mind that most of the public is not engaged closely enough with your issue to want to
know all of the nuances.
Identify the one finding that will most clearly change yonr audience’s perception of the issue, and
then promote the need for change. If they need to know four different numbers to get your point, you
are on the wrong track.
Example: In October 1995, the Federal Trade Commission’s annual report on tobacco consumption,
sales, and promotion identified a record spending level on advertising and promotion, provided a wide
variety of new data about tobacco industry practices, and disclosed the largest decline in cigarette sales in
the last 30 years.
4
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.2 September 1998
While much of this information was newsworthy, advocates focused attention on one statistic—the near
doubling of spending on promotional ’’specialty items" (T-shirts, hats, etc.). This particular number made
clear to the audience the industry’s effort to target children. Just as important, it made the link to the need
for Federal regulation—then proposed by the Food and Drug Administration—that would end distribution
ofsudiitems.
Cigarette companies spent $756 million on the distribution ofspecialty items in 1993, an increase of
more than $416 million from 1992. Since these specialty items are distributed primarily by mail, at
promotional events, and through catalogue orders, there is no way to ensure consistently that these
products are limited to adults.
A 1995 survey ofnearly 6,000 California retailersfound that stores displayed an average ofabout 25
tobacco ads and promotions per store—many aimed at youth. About halfofthe ads are near the candy
rack and more advertisements appear outside stores near schools than at other locations.
Take a good look at the cigarette ads offeringfree T-shirts, posters, and other toys. The tobacco
companies say these ncoor items don't encourage kids to smoke—what do you think?
Interpret the Numbers: Social Math
Turning statistics into useful advocacy tools requires relating them both to the policy issue
you seek to advance, and to the audience you wish to persuade. The process of
converting data into easily understandable information that communicates its relevance to
an issue has been termed "social math." It is fundamentally a creative process, well-suited
to a group brainstorming session. The objective is to associate the statistics with an image
or statement that makes your point vivid and compelling, but without distorting or
overstating the data.
Several techniques effectively turn statistics into strong, rigorous statements with
statistics:
Humanize the
Numbers
In this country of over 250 million people, social problems come in thousands of
people, millions and billions of dollars, and numbers of years. Big numbers such
as these are hard to relate to on a personal level.
Take those large-scale numbers and put them in contexts or units that audiences
can understand: Divide annual figures by smaller units of time. Compare the
magnitude of the figure with a more familiar number, either to show a great
contrast, or a surprising similarity.
Example: The Federal government estimates that 400,000 people die each year
from tobacco-related disease. By dividing by the days in a year, we find that, on
average, 1,100 die each day from tobacco. To put the magnitude of that figure
5
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.2 September 1998
into a context, we can equate the effect of tobacco-related illness with 2 jumbo jet
crashes per day, killing everyone on board, every day of the year.
A further division of the annual figure reveals that approximately 45 people die
every hour from tobacco in the United States—or about one every 79 seconds.
Another way to present this figure is to tell a member of Congress that ’’about
1,000 people will die in your district each year as a result of tobacco use." This
not only "humanizes" the figure, by bringing it down to a more comprehensible
scale, it also identifies Congress’s responsibility and jurisdiction regarding this
national death toll—calling for a policy response.
Every day, more than 3,000 adolescents in the United States smoke theirfirst
cigarette, taking the first step toward becoming regular smokers by the time they
reach adulthood. Though cigarette advertising and promotion declined in 1994,
the industry continues to spend at a mind-boggling pace: over 13 million dollars
(313,233,000) per day; over a half-million dollars (3551,400) per hour; and over
nine thousand dollars (39190.00) per minute—every minute, around the clock.
Movefrom the
Quantitative to
the Qualitative
Many statistics are so abstract or unfamiliar that they make people’s eyes glaze
over. But such numbers can often be used effectively by making a simple
qualitative comparison (more/less, bigger/smaller) with another figure. This can
focus their attention away from the technicalities of numbers, and onto the
substance of your argument.
Example: Cigarette smoking causes more premature deaths than do all of the
following combined: AIDS, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, fire, automobile accidents,
homicide and suicide.
Bring the Story
Home
Identify the specific impact of your data on your community. This makes the
numbers more relevant and brings attention to the social dimension of the
problem. Since most folks identify more closely with their own town or city than
with the state or nation as a whole, they can more readily grasp the need for
collective action to address it.
Example: Knowing that 400,000 Americans die each year from tobacco-related
illness, you can project the number of deaths that will occur in your community in
the same period. Simply divide the population figure for your community by the
population estimate for the United States (many such figures are available through
the U.S. Census Bureau web site), and multiply by 400,000. Keep in mind,
however, that such figures do not reflect demographic variations in smoking
prevalence across the country, and are thus only rough projections.
The national death tollfrom tobacco suggests that about 150 ofour neighbors
here in the Springfield, Illinois, area will die as a result oftobacco use this
year—one every 2.5 days, [based on 1994 Censusfigures]
6
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.2 September 1998
Make Your Numbers Sing!: The Right Analogy
Even after you have used a social math technique to convert your statistic into a form the
audience can grasp, it’s critical to link your fact(s) with the policy change you propose. A
particularly effective way to drive home your argument is to make an analogy to an issue
that the public has already addressed.
Example: We know that td)acco could kill about 150 Springfield citizens in a year. If a
notorious drug dealer had caused 150 deaths from heroin and crack cocaine in a year, the city
would surely take action. Don’t the dangers of tobacco—and the promotional seductions of the
tobacco industry—deserve the same attention?
Accentuate the Positive: The Gains
Though many important statistics deal with the social costs of tobacco, it’s important to
avoid "hand-wnnging" over these often devastating facts. Whenever possible, return to a
positive focus by emphasizing the pro-health impact that policy changes can bring.
Example. While the new regulations designed to protect children and adolescents from tobacco
will create new costs (projected by the Food and Drug Administration at up to $ 185 million
annually), they will result in lower health care costs, longer lives, and increased productivity,
valued by FDA at a minimum of $9 billion each year.
This means that each dollar spent annually to meet the regulations would result in at least 48
dollars in social benefits—-a great dividend on the dollar!
The smalt investment in tobacco regulations will pay offin longer lives and better healthfor
millions ofAmericans. New generations will grow upfree oftobacco addiction, and ofthe
debilitating diseases that result. These gains are priceless for individual families. And since
each dollar spent to meet the regulations could result in 48 dollars worth ofsocial benefits, they
are a sound investmentfor the nation as a whole.
Don ft Stretch the Data Too Far: Credibility
If you ve come up with a great-sounding explanation of your new figure, but the numbers
don’t quite work, don’t put yourself on a ticking time-bomb of embarrassment and lost
credibility. Someone will find the flaw in your argument, and your clever effort to frame
your issue will end up looking dumb or deceitful. You will, too.
Example: In February 1990, Perrier mineral water was recalled nationwide because it was found
to be contaminated with benzene. Advocates compared the level of benzene in cigarette smoke to
the amount in the tainted drink, and found that one would have to drink more than 50 servings of
recalled Perrier to get the same amount of benzene as from a single pack of cigarettes.
In a hearing later that year. Congressional staff used other data to make the same comparison,
and came up with a far more dramatic figure—that cigarette smoke contained 2,000 times the
benzene in the Perrier. Unfortunately, the figure they used for benzene in tobacco was not related
7
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.2 September 1998
to the amount consumed in smoking; an Environmental Protection Agency technician termed the
methodology used "completely specious."
While this figure could have led pro-tobacco interests to attack the credibility of the
Congressional analysis, the only result was confusion among a few tobacco-prevention advocates,
since the erroneous figure didn’t get enough attention to be worth challenging.
Be Sure About the Data: Fail Safe
Your oppponent will be nitpicky and look for some way to discredit your statistics. The
good news is you can prevent statistical disasters with careful work and attention to detail.
Make sure that the comparisons and conversions you use are rigorous, and when in doubt,
do not use them. If you have to do additional math, be sure it’s right. When possible,
check with an expert (such as the author of the study or report you cite) to be sure that
you haven’t mischaracterized anything.
And remember: even if you’ve done everything right, you will likely face a series of
challenges to a controversial claim, both from skeptical reporters and your opponents on
the issue. Be ready to cite the sources, provide copies of the study, and explain how you
converted your figures. If you have time, it’s a great idea to put together a one-pager
ahead of time that does this job, so that you can quickly distribute it to those who have
questions.
ometimes you begin by knowing what you want to do with statistics, but you have to
Ofind the right ones to do the job. Fortunately, there are a variety of publicly available
sources that you can use to find pertinent statistical information that can further your own
policy objectives directly, and provide a context for your efforts to a more general
audience.
• Social Science Research
• Government Resources
• Advocacy Groups and Other Stakeholders
• Opinion Polling
• Internet
•
Currently Reported Data
As you begin to explore sources, you will be confronted with a dizzying array of
materials probably more than you can deal with at once. To narrow your search, keep a
series of questions in mind that will help you to identify the kind of information you want.
Some important ones include:
8
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.2 September 1998
•
•
•
•
•
What specific policy change am I advocating? (Clean indoor air policies? A
vending machine ban? Advertising/marketing restrictions?)
What is the concrete measure of the problem that the policy addresses?
(Advertising dollars? The average age that smokers begin using tobacco?
Stores that sell tobacco to minors? Children’s awareness of tobacco brand
names and advertising?)
What is the quantifiable impact of that problem? (Deaths? Illness? Lost
productivity?)
Is there a strong association between two phenomena that I need to
demonstrate to show the need for a policy change? (i.e., nicotine and
addiction; tobacco promotion and consumption; tobacco political contributions
and legislators’ policy positions)
Where have similar policies been used successfully in the past? (In a
locality, or another country? In a different but analogous policy area? As part
of a government demonstration project?)
Social Science Research
Most disciplines publish research in journals geared to other specialists in their field,
including epidemiology, medical and public health research, economics, and public policy.
Such journals are available at university and professional school libraries, and are usually
indexed in specialized catalogs.
Government Resources
The Federal government conducts large-scale ongoing research on the health status of
Americans. Two of the most valuable projects for tobacco control advocates are the
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and the National Health and
Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), both administered by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC).
The BRFSS is a monthly telephone survey conducted in each of the 50 states, and is
designed to provide data to support tobacco control and other health promotion efforts.
State health departments are able to customize part of the survey to issues of special
importance in-theif state. Each month, CDC compiles the results and shares them with all
states. The system provides an excellent source of up-to-date information on tobacco use
and other disease-related behaviors affecting the nation.
The NHANES is a periodic survey, based on physical exams and other objective measures,
of the health and nutritional status of the American population. The most recent available
survey data was completed in 1994. Over 30 topics were explored, including
environmental tobacco smoke and lung disease. While summary reports are available from
9
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.2 September 1998
the CDC s National Center for Health Statistics, most of the specific findings are
published in the professional medical and epidemiological journals.
In addition to the research discussed above, the Federal government, and to a lesser extent
state and local governments, provide a wealth of useful information to the public, much of
it free of charge. Government Printing Office bookstores sell a variety of publications
developed by Federal agencies. The Bureau of Health Statistics maintains a variety of
important information on health status, including tobacco prevalence data. Many agencies
also conduct research designed to evaluate their own policies and programs. And the
General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, publishes reports on a
plethora of potential legislative issues.
Key tobacco resources include:
•
•
•
Center for Disease Control’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
Surgeon General’s series of reports on tobacco and health
Federal Trade Commission’s annual report on tobacco sales, advertising, and
promotion
Advocacy Groups and Other Stakeholders
Many advocacy groups and others involved in tobacco control (the National Center for
Tobacco-Free Kids and the American Cancer Society, for example) conduct or compile
research. If you know of a group that is engaged in your issue, call or write them and
request a publications list; they may have just what you need!
Opinion Polling
In many cases, opinion data that demonstrate widespread concern about a social problem,
or support for a needed change, can be extremely effective in making your case. Groups
such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the University of Michigan Survey
Research Center, and the American Cancer Society frequently conduct public opinion
survey of tobacco-related issues. Contact them to get copies of their latest findings.
You can also do your own polling! A variety of commercial opinion research
organizations conduct regular surveys on a weekly or monthly basis; you can add a
question or series of questions to these surveys for a fee.
10
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.2 September 1998
The Internet
Don’t Forget the Net! Many of the resources cited above are available on the World Wide
Web. Even when the materials themselves are not directly available, the Internet can save
you time by helping you narrow your search. There are also a number of Web sites
maintained by tobacco control organizations that provide links to useful information.
One good place to start your on-line search is the home page of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention/National Center for Health Statistics:
http ://www. cdc.gov/nchswww/nchshome.htm).
It provides on-line access to summary findings from the BRFSS and NHANES, as well as
an electronic edition of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. It also provides links
to the Web sites of state health departments and other health resources, and up-to-date
news releases on public health issues. It is well worth exploring for current tobaccorelated information.
Currently Reported Data
While identifying new data in support of your position is always helpful, it’s sometimes
most important to deal with statistics that are already part of the debate. Later in this
Advisory we will discuss ways of responding to your opponent’s use of statistics. In many
cases, however, significant new data announced by government and/or reported in the
media needs to be reframed to reveal their impact and communicate your message.
Example: As explained above, the estimated annual death rate from tobacco (400,000 per year in the
United States) has been used many different ways to emphasize the impact of tobacco use for many
different advocacy efforts and specific localities.
You know your specific tobacco control policy objective, so you probably have a good
idea of what you’re looking for. But use these questions as a spur to think creatively; you
may be surprised at what you can find!
Example: The British magazine The Economist uses what it calls “the Big Mac index,” a comparison of
the price of a MacDonald’s Big Mac in different countries around the world, as an indicator of the
valuation of various world currencies. This analogy translates the abstract subject of currency exchange
rates into terms that every reader can quickly and intuitively grasp.
Similarly, tobacco advocates could compare the price of a similarly popular consumer
product with the price of a pack of cigarettes to make an argument for increased tobacco
taxes. Making the right comparison could illustrate the kinds of choices that children are
making when they consider buying their first pack of cigarettes, thus emphasizing the
purpose of the tax policy: to decrease youth access to tobacco.
05569
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■
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.2 September 1998
Today, children can go into a convenience store and buy either a pack of cigarettes ora-magaTine for
about the same amount ofmoney . With the proposed tax increase, the cigarettes would cost almost twice
as much-^^td a lot more kids wuld choose the magazine over the cigarettes.
® Answer YourAdversary
Tust as important as presenting your own information is identifying and answering the
J distortions made by your opponents in the debate. In fact, the presentation of
misleading or incomplete information by others provides a prime opportunity for you to
make your case. This section provides some useful techniques for convincingly and
specifically refuting the claim in question, and for presenting the relevant correct
information in ways that bring the audience back to the social dimension of the issue, and
the need for policy change.
We were used to bringing scientists out of the woodwork and have this particular lab do this, and wed
have a poll polled by some cockamamie pollster saying this, that or the other.. . . just to show. .. that
the Jury s still out, that you shouldn't take away anybody's civil rights until you're absolutely sure what
you're doing. How can you be absolutely sure when this, thisXYZ laboratory, worldfamous laboratory...
Why is it worldfamous? Because 1 said it is and nobody’s checked.
Victor Crawford, former Tobacco Institute lobbyist, who became a tobacco control advocate
after being diagnosed with throat cancer, speaking of the tactics he used to kill tobacco control bills.
("Confessions of a Tobacco Lobbyist? 60 Minutes, March 19, 1995)
So the tobacco companies...when they cannot get the fact they need they take it out ofcontext. When they
cannot take it out of context, they lie. That is something you need to know and not be afraid to say.
—Stanton Glantz
Call the Foul
If you see a figure or finding that seems suspicious to you, begin by examining it closely
and identifying its flaws precisely. Obtain a copy of the source material that backs up the
claim you are challenging. You will want to know both the source and the methodology
behind the statistic. If those making the claim can’t provide this to you, be suspicious.
Ask a reporter to review the claim and its supporting methodology with an independent
expert. (This is still a good thing to ask if you do obtain the material, but haven’t had time
to thoroughly examine it before discussing it with the media.)
12
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.2 September 1998
As you read through the documentation^ ask yourself the following questions:
L Does the evidence really support the claim? Studies are often used to
support a claim that has nothing to do with the study. (Example: Evidence
about tobacco use from countries that have never permitted tobacco
advertising shed little, if any, light on the impact of marketing restrictions in
countries where advertising has long been prevalent.)
2. If the source was a study, was it conducted by a reputable scientist? Does
the author have economic ties to the tobacco industry? Was the study
published in a professional journal, or otherwise peer-reviewed? Do the
findings conflict with a large body of other scientific evidence? (Example:
When an Environmental Protection Agency committee was developing its
report identifying environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) as a carcinogen, the
tobacco industry repeatedly claimed that the group was “ignoring” a study
finding no link between ETS and cancer. In fact, EP A considered the study’s
findings, despite the fact that it had not been published in a professional
journal, but made only limited use of it because its supporting data were
insufficient.)
3
If the source was a survey, are the questions ’’honest,1’ or do they lead
respondents to the answers that the surveyors were looking for? Who was
actually surveyed? Does the sample reflect the population as a whole (by age,
gender, ethnicity, economics, etc.)? Watch especially for survey forms that are
filled out by respondents and returned The results of such surveys reflect the
views not of those who received it, but those who were willing to fill it out and
send it back—a very different group!
4. Is the publicized version of the claim actually backed up by the data, or is
it characterized in a false or misleading way? (Example: While a 1989
Tobacco Institute ad campaign claimed that "[a] majority of Americans do not
support smoking bans,” the polling data actually showed that 74% of
respondents favored separate sections for smokers and nonsmokers, and
another 24% supported a total ban of smoking in restaurants. Only 2%
supported no restriction on restaurant smoking.)
5. Does the claim make sense? Putting all of the pieces together, does the
argument being made fit the reality of the public problem you are talking
about? If it doesn’t, you need to identify why not: what’s misleading or unfair,
why an analogy is false, or what important information has been left out that
puts the information in context.
13
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.2 September 1998
When you are comfortable that you have found the flaws that raised your concern,
write them out in a form that you can use to communicate with your audience.
List a couple of bulleted points that briefly and clearly explain the error in
reasoning that you have found. If you need to cite additional evidence in making
your point, get that together as well; but, include in the bullets only the evidence
you need to explain your argument. Add supporting material on back-up pages, if
necessary. Be careful not to get mired in the details; if the reporter can’t grasp ’
your point on the first reading, she could dismiss it out of hand.
Remember, your claim will be even more closely scrutinized than the one you are
taking to task, so make sure all of your arguments are rock-solid, clear, and
succinct. Keep the media s point-of-view in mind: in challenging your opponent,
you are probably taking a story that was easy-to-tell and was practically pre
written for the reporter, and making it more complicated and difficult. Don’t give
the reporter any excuses to ignore your evidence.
Get Past " You're WRONG! "
Being clear and forceful in pointing out flaws in an opponent’s claim is important, but
don’t let the disagreement degenerate into a shouting match or dissipate into a ’’difference
of opinions of equal merit. Show not only why a factual claim is erroneous or
misleading, but why the correction is significant to the issue.
First, ask yourself: Why did they make the claim in the first place? Point this reason out
clearly, and show how discrediting the claim strengthens your position. Be explicit—
what’s obvious to you may not be to your audience!
Example: The tobacco industry says many studies show no evidence of a link
between tobacco and disease. In fact, almost all scientists not funded by the
industry recognize a clear link between the two, using the same methodologies that
are widely accepted for other health risks. But the key point here is that the
industry has suppressed and manipulated its own studies to suggest that an honest
debate about these risks exists where, in fact, there isn’t one. That’s why they
aren’t credible on this or any scientific issue.
14
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.2 September 1998
Keep Batting!
In answering your adversary, don’t get trapped within the terms of debate defined by the
adversary. Don’t let your opponent box you in to simply picking at his or her claim;
attend to getting your own message out at the same time. This is another prime
opportunity to turn the focus to the social dimension and to the need for policy change to
address the problems of tobacco use.
Example: "While my opponent sits here claiming that tobacco advertising is intended only
for adults, we know that thousands of children are exposed to advertising images that
equate smoking with maturity, attractiveness, and being ‘cool.’ And the scientific
evidence shows that this advertising influences their decision to begin smoking. No matter
what the tobacco industry claims to intend, we can’t afford the effects that such
advertising has in promoting tobacco use among children right at the ages when most
smokers become addicted."
The industry loves to argue about methodology in studying the health risks of
environmental tobacco smoke even though they 're wrong, because it takes attention away
from the real issue: How do we reduce this well-documented health hazard with a strong
public health strategy? "
® Take the High Ground
A s noted above, professor Robert Abelson describes statistics as a form of "principled
xxargument." In this advisory, we have focused mostly on the "argument" part—on
how to incorporate statistical information into messages that communicate, persuade, and
inspire public action in others. It’s useful in closing to reiterate the "principles" of truth,
fairness, and accuracy that undergird these strategies, and the practical purposes that they
serve in public interest advocacy.
It is all too commonly believed today that "you can say anything with numbers." In part,
this results from a general skepticism about the validity of our public debate. But it also
stems from a long standing and unfortunate tendency for many to use figures in careless,
incorrect, or misleading ways. Statistics and scientific findings lend an aura of
"objectivity" to an argument. For those who have the ability to saturate an audience with
their message through paid media or other high-priced communications strategies, adding
a number or two is a cheap way to add credibility without a serious risk of challenge.
15
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.2 September 1998
Furthermore, credibility is less important for pro-tobacco advocates, since they are
working to tell stories that are in many ways "ready made" for the media—focused on
individual responsibility and personal choice. As a tobacco control media advocate, your
objective is to direct attention to the social nature of the tobacco problem, and the need
for policy solutions to address it.
The reality, of course, is that some numbers are right and some are wrong; some claims
are factual and some are not. This distinction is a critical tool for those of us who don’t
have the money or power to simply steamroll their position into public awareness. As we
argued above, you can counter the misleading claims of others not only to set the record
straight, but to advance your own cause.
To be able to use this strategy consistently, however, your own information must be free
of error and bias. If the media or policymakers find that your information isn’t credible,
they won t listen a second time. And if your opponent successfully challenges your
claims, then you’re left in a shouting match—and the other guy or gal can probably afford
a louder megaphone.
Since your efforts are a challenge to the media’s tendency to deal in personalized,
individual stories, you have a special se/^interest in being careful with facts and figures.
Bad information and false claims give media gatekeepers an excuse to ignore you.
16
Blowing Away the Smoke:
A Series ofAdvanced Media Advocacy Advisories
for Tobacco Control Advocates
A Project of the Advocacy Institute
Getting the Message Right: Using Formative Research
Advisory No. 3
The Message, The RightMessage
■political actors in this country, from Presidents to grassroots activists, are preoccupied—
A some would say obsessed—with getting out the “right message.” No White House day
can now start without setting the all-important media “line of the day.”
Ethel Klein is both a noted political scientist and one of the leading media strategists for
public health advocacy campaigns on issues ranging from spousal abuse to handgun
control. When issue advocates sit around a table to talk “message,” she laments, they
invariably rush to hatching catchy slogans and clever sound bites. Or they concoct
elaborate arguments to answer all the arguments put forward by their adversaries. Klein
offers a different vision:
Good sound bites, and slogans—and speeches, policy solutions, meaningful statistics, arguments—
all support and reinforce your message, but they are not what communications experts mean by
‘message. ’ To communications professionals, your message is the organizing theme. And no media
advocacy campaign can succeed without a powerful, coherent organizing theme, a theme that is at
the same time logically persuasive, morally authoritative, and capable ofevoking passion. A
campaign message must speak at one and the same time to the brain and to the heart.
Staying on Message
TJolitical candidates are constantly nagged by their media consultants to “stay on
A message.” And the great sin of campaigning is to “step on your message.” What do
media consultants mean when they exhort their political or public relations clients, above all
to “stay on message”? and why is that so important?
In short, it is important to stay on message because that’s the way you control what gets
said, rather than reacting to what others are saying. If you are reacting to others or saying a
couple of different things, people won’t hear you.
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.3 September 1998
More specifically, staying on message helps you saturate a message. It takes a lot of
repetition for people to hear you. If people keep hearing the same things from you, you
increase the likelihood that they will get it.
Also, when you are on message, you are less vulnerable to attacks or distractions from your
opponents. If you are using a lot of different messages or responding to others’ messages,
you have many more points of vulnerability. Using fewer messages allows you to think
through the different things people could say to you and how you are going to respond.
Of course, advocates have to be prepared with effective answers to the industry’s
arguments, and to other questions and challenges raised by journalists. But at the heart of
media advocacy is the need to change the subject whenever possible to the themes and
messages that work for you and awayfrom the themes and subjects the opposition wants to
talk about.
That’s why we all need to hear a small inner voice constantly reminding us, “Don’t argue.
Don’t debate. Change the subject if you need to, but stay on message!”
Developing the Message
'T'he campaign message must be the product of a deliberate process. We need to
constantly remind ourselves that media advocacy is a tool or craft in the service of
advocating policy change. So no message should spring from our fertile creative brains—
until we take the pedestrian route of answering the following key questions:
1. What do we want?
What is our specific objective: A vending machine ban? The deep-sixing of the
dreaded preemption clause imbedded in a seemingly innocuous state bill?
Comprehensive FDA regulation of tobacco industry access to kids?
2. Who has the power to make it happen?
The city council? The state legislature and governor? The President and Congress?
3. What do they need to hear?
Do members of the city council need to hear that vending machine laws will really
keep cigarettes out of the hands of many young children? Or do they already know
that, but now need to hear that the law is sound and safe from legal attack? Or do
they need to hear most that voters want this law, and that a good number of them
may vote for another candidate if the ban isn’t approved?
2
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.3 September 1998
Using Formative Research to Develop the Message:
Focus Groups and Polling
nPhe focus group process is a conversation designed to find openings to the minds of
J. people, the “frames” and language to which they are most responsive. The participants
will be chosen from those voters who have not thought much, nor systematically, about
tobacco issues; voters who commonly harbor conflicting and contradictory feelings about
issues we think are self-evident (unless the purpose of the focus group is to seek ways to
energize and mobilize the already committed “grassroots”).
Six such focus group conversations with typical Americans were conducted by the Boston
firm of Martilla and Kiley for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Smokeless States
Initiative in early 1995. They produced at least one startling insight: People are not
particularly moved by the spectacle of teenage smokers, nor are they inclined to hold
tobacco company advertising accountable for teenage smoking. Their attitude seems to be,
“What do you expect from teenagers?”!
However, in the face of evidence that children are starting to smoke at younger and younger
ages, typical Americans are very much concerned about pre-teen and early teen smoking
And they are capable of outrage when focused on cigarette advertising and marketing, like
Joe Camel ads and promotions, that they see as appealing to these very young people.
The focus groups also forced the tobacco control strategists to recognize that they are
fundamentally different from most of their fellow Americans. As the polls revealed, most
Americans, when pressed for an opinion, support tobacco prevention policy initiatives. But
the focus groups remind us that most people just don’t think about tobacco policies very
much, don’t walk around shaking their fists at tobacco companies, and don’t pay much
attention to the stories we find riveting.
Other polling and focus group data at that time revealed that:
• Americans had absorbed well the scientific judgment that tobacco use was not only
lethal but a true addiction.
• Tobacco companies were truly disbelieved and scorned.
• Americans had become increasingly disgusted with the role of “special interest” money
in political campaigns, and tobacco was one of the first “special interests” that leapt to
their minds.
3
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.3 September 1998
A Case Study
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a Robert Wood Johnson project, was launched in the fall of 1995 to
support and promote the proposed Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tobacco regulations.
1. The Objective. The answer to the first question was clear: Pass the proposed FDA regulations—undiluted.
2. The Target Audience. The answer to the second question was straightforward: The President and
Congress.
After President Clinton expressed strong support of die FDA rules, the focus shifted to the Congress—and the
very real fear that die Congressional leadership, with both fierce anti-regulatory animus and close ties die
tobacco industry, would act to derail the regulations. It was Congress that held the power to let the FDA act
or stop the FDA in its tracks.
To make members of Congress believe that any action by diem to kill the tobacco regulations could provoke
an angry voter backlash, lawmakers needed to perceive that at least some voters were, indeed, paying attention
to the issue.
It is important to note that the goal was not to convince a majority of voters to support the FDA rule. When
asked, a majority did support the FDA. But not many individuals felt passionately about the issue and were
poised to take action. Nor was it a priority for them, die way that gun control issues are for millions of
National Rifle Association members.
The Campaign’s audience had to be primarily those individuals who already supported the issue, but needed to
be aroused and focused. In political campaign terms, the audience was the “base” of supporters, and the
media advocacy objective was to Mobilize the base.”
Their messages were designed to do just that
3. The Message. The answer—or answers—to the third question was more complex and challenging. In
broad terms die answer to this question had to be: Whatever makes Congressional leaders think twice before
doing the tobacco industry’s dirty work.
Members of Congress had to hear messages to convince them that attempting to stop the FDA was politically
risky. So for tobacco control advocates, the challenge was to develop a message, or several sharply focused
messages, that would achieve that objective. To help craft such messages, advocates turned to available
formative research such as polling and focus group testing and drew from their own extensive policy advocacy
experience. They came up with four key organizing themesCigarette smoking is, in FDA Commissioner David Kessler’s words, "a pediatric disease. ” It’s not
only teenagers who are taking up smoking, but kids— 9-, 10-, and 11-year-olds. And more and more
ofthem are smoking at younger and younger ages.
Cigarette smoking is addictive, and the tobacco companies manipulate the addictive nicotine in
cigarettes deliberately to make sure their cigarettes hook kids and keep them addicted.
Tobacco companies have lied to the publicfor 30years. They have known about the hazards of
smoking, and they have lied about it They have known that nicotine is a true addictive drug, and
they have lied about it. They target their advertising andpromotions to young people, and they have
lied about that
4
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.3 September 1998
To keep public health authorities like the FDA from protecting kidsfrom the tobacco companies ’
reach, the companies have poured millions ofdollars into political campaigns, corrupting our
democracy.
The Campaign embarked on a media campaign that sounded these four themes. The media can^iaign,
"America's Kids Are Not For Sale,” called on all political candidates to “renounce and refuse” tobacco
campaign contributions. The Campaign ran a series of paid advertisements in those papers that Congress
reads (the Washington Post, New York Times, and Roll Call).
While the Campaign messages called upon members to pledge to refuse tobacco campaign money, the
Campaign’s leaders well understood that there was little chance that the key Congressional leaders would do
that, given their long and deep addiction to tobacco money. But by framing tobacco money as so inherently
corrupting that no decent politician should touch it, die Campaign sought to make the Congressional leaders
fear that any action by them to stop FDA would be seen by die media, and die voting public, as a payoff for
die tobacco dollars they were taking. And that’s a message that fits the objective of message development—
creating messages that are logically persuasive, morally authoritative, and capable of evoking passion.
The Campaign also seized every opportunity during the Presidential primary season, which coincided with a
critical session of Congress, to highlight tobacco industry campaign contributions and political ties between
the tobacco lobby and Congressional leaders. Their messages kept the spotlight on Congress and enhanced
the stench of tobacco money and influence—stories calculated to rouse the ire of those voters who already
distrusted both tobacco companies and Congress.
How much impact these messages actually had on the Congressional leadership can never be known. But, as
die election year progressed, tobacco money was never far from die news. And Congress never moved to act
to block die FDA.
In the case study, the Campaign stayed on message; it did not allow itself to sidetrack its
own messages by arguing with the messages of the tobacco industry public relations
machinery:
•
•
•
•
President Clinton is once again givingfederal bureaucrats the power to tell states, cities,
parents, and the private sector how to do theirjobs.
Tobacco products are already overregulated. More than ninefederal agencies that currently
regulate tobacco in all 50 states have tobacco youth access laws on the books.
This government power grab should send a cold shudder through all American businesses and
consumers. Today rs government villain is tobacco. Tomorrow, chocolate, caffeine, or
cholesterol could be the FDA's next convenientfoe.
Big Brother has again chosen afederal approach tofamily and local problems.
No doubt the tobacco industry’s polling and focus group research confirmed the public’s
rising frustration and antipathy toward government and encouraged their message
developers to use the free-market libertarian rhetoric sampled above. However, the Martilia
and Kiley focus group data provide some clues about why the industry’s libertarian
messages fell flat. While most people have little love for government, they are willing to
soften this stand when it relates to children. At the same time, the public does not trust the
tobacco industry.
5
Blowing Away the Smoke:
A Series ofAdvanced Media Advocacy Advisories
for Tobacco Control Advocates
A Project of the Advocacy Institute
Lessons from the Frontlines:
Tobacco Control Media Advocacy in Communities of Color
Advisory No 4
argeted marketing. Billboard advertising. These are just two of the issues tobacco
control activists in communities of color use to attract grassroots interest in
changing tobacco policies. Thanks to their innovative work, more and more
people are becoming aware that tobacco control is more than a medical issue—it is a
health issue with socio-political ramifications for race and justice.
Much of the success of these advocates results from their savvy of the relationship
between the media and grassroots organizing. These activists use media to support their
organizing efforts, but don’t expect the media to mobilize people for them. Therefore,
organizing goals (e.g., winning the issue, numbers of people engaged) are the priority.
Media goals (getting coverage, relationships with reporters, etc.) are important, but
primarily as a means of achieving these organizing goals.
This advisory explores a number of lessons learned from the synergistic relationship
between media advocacy and effective community organizing:
•
Racism and classism are barriers to sensitive coverage of the tobacco issues in
communities of color—or to getting covered at all.
•
Effectively refining or "cutting an issue" so that it engages grassroots interest is
essential to a campaign’s success.
•
Care must be taken in choosing a target—the key decision maker(s) to be
influenced or pressured—as it is the most important factor in shaping the campaign
strategy.
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.4 September 1998
•
Creative, controversial special events can get media coverage where standard
media relations efforts fail.
•
Alternative media, ethnic media, and other forms of community media are
important resources that activists can use effectively.
•
Media coverage isn't always a positive factor in mobilizing support.
L1 actors such as lack of diversity in media outlets and deeply ingrained patterns of
A segregation in living and work patterns overall are barriers to coverage in communities
of color. Conventional media advocacy typically requires a tremendous amount of
reporter cultivation—building relationships with reporters through personal contact,
common social settings, work relationships or by becoming a regular source for stories
and information. In communities of color, meeting reporters under any of these conditions
can be difficult. Some media outlets do not cover these communities regularly or only
cover them in very narrow, limiting ways (i.e., crime stories).
Communities also struggle with what happens when they are covered. Media ignorance
and bias can result in news stories that are negative and defamatory. As a result, many
activists prefer to leave the media alone, and virtually all groups working in communities
of color weigh their media outreach carefully against the possible damage that media
attention could inflict.
However, these difficult conditions can still provide fertile soil for creative media
advocacy in these communities. Careful, adept use of soundbites, efforts to engage the
full spectrum of media (including religious and ethnic media), and the use of attention
getting press events have helped groups overcome these barriers with aplomb, and use
media to further their advocacy and organizing goals.
Choosing and "Cutting" the Issue
TP he first decision that a grassroots campaign must make is to identify and develop the
x specific issue on which they wish to focus media advocacy. Activists often guide this
decision with a set of criteria or questions:
2
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.4 September 1998
•
•
•
•
Does the issue have a high degree of community concern and stake?
Can it mobilize enough available resources to succeed?
Will it have the support of numerous potential allies?
Is it specific and manageable enough to win?
However, choosing the issue is not enough. Through a process of refining or “issue
cutting, advocates make clear the importance of the issue and the reasons why we should
care about it.
It s important to note that cutting the issue is a bit different from framing a message.
Framing is the set of activities that guides what gets said about the issue (e.g., analyzing
the audience, refuting the opposition). Cutting an issue is pinpointing what piece of a
problem or concern a group will take on according to a set of goals and criteria. After a
decision is made about how the larger issue will be refined, then a group is ready to frame
an appropriate message to support their goals.
Examples of Issue Cutting
Successful grassroots campaigns to stop Uptown cigarettes andX brand cigarettesfocused on two key
points: (1) the exploitation of important cultural values and institutions to sell deadly products; and (2) the
potential appeal of these products to youths. In each case, it was clear to advocates that African
Ainericans were being•***«*
targeted by these companies,? but
marketing
——— targeted
i was not
enoughalone
of a
”hook" to draw broad support. By ’’cutting" the issue in ways that emphasized its racial overtones and
placed it within a context of ongoing efforts foiir socio-economic justice, advocates were able to broaden its
appeal—and newsworthiness.
4
M
mA
M ■< t
M*1 X* 4 V- M M •
■>
I
'•'#
*•
•»
Another example of adept "issue cutting" isfound in the Baltimore Citywide Liquor Coalition’s (BCLC)
efforts to ban alcohol and tobacco billboards in most areas ofBaltimore. Here again, themes
emphasizing youth targeting and race and class exploitation proved effective in mobilizing
communities—with a local twist. The predominantly African American coalition successfully aroused the
community from apathy about tobacco control by linking billboards to "bread and butter" issues of
neighborhood blight, bias, and economic development.
When the Baltimore coalition chooses an issue, they apply the WRIST test For every initiative they
consider, they ask:
Is the issue: Winnable? Real? Immediate? Specific? Tangible?
According to BCLC organizer Kevin Jordan, issue development is one of the most important steps in
developing media and organizing strategies. It will determine your allies, your target and your power
base. In fact, organizers who use the WRIST criteria have a saying that illustrates its importance:
Ifyou want to make afist, you've got to have a WRIST.
3
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.4 September 1998
Understanding Who You're Talking To
TTaving a clear understanding ofyour audience's stake in the issue is critical to the
success of media advocacy. While media advocacy is not the same as organizing a
power base, activists use the same kinds of analyses to develop their media strategy as
they use in organizing. In media advocacy, there are generally two kinds of audiences:
•
The primary audience, or target, is the decision maker or decision making body
(public or private) to be influenced or pressured to change
•
The secondary audience is composed of potential allies to be mobilized to help
pressure the target.
Effective coalitions chart each potential target’s and ally’s self-interest, depth of concern,
and risk in supporting the initiative in order to shape an effective message to draw them in.
This analytical approach ensures that the media fit clearly and effectively into the overall
organizing strategy.
Ask the following questions in choosing a target for organizing communities
and media advocacy efforts:
Which people or institutions have the power to solve the problem and grant your
demands? Identify which is the most important targetfor achieving your specific
policy goal.
Who must you get to in order to reach those above?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of each potential target?
Which targets are appointed? elected?
What relationships or tactics give you power or influence with them (as voters,
consumers, taxpayers, investors, shaming, etc.)?
What is their self-interest?
Who would have a stake orjurisdiction ifyou redefined the issue (e.g., turned a
tobacco advertising issue into a fair business practices issue) ? Does this help
you?
4
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.4 September 1998
Choosing a target goes hand in hand with identifying potential allies; advocates working in
communities of color often employ a two-pronged strategy that simultaneously shames
targets and catalyzes action at the community level. Successful groups take great care to
choose targets over whom they have some degree of power; they exploit the targets'
vulnerabilities in the media.
Planning an effective strategy also requires understanding the positions and roles that all
involved will take in the public debate. After the target and allies are identified, extensive
research must be done to identify each party's influence, interests, and goals with respect
to the issue. Staff and volunteers at the Los Angeles-based Community Coalition for
Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment, for example, comb through public reports,
contribution lists, news clippings, and personal interviews to develop this information.
Information is charted on the wall in a "war room" style to inform their media and
organizing strategies. Others, like the Onyx Group and the California African American
Tobacco Education Network rely more heavily on the Internet for this research. Using
networks like SCARCNet (a tobacco control computer network managed by the
Advocacy Institute), CompuServe’s Public Health Forum, and HANDSNet, advocates
place queries on line to gather intelligence and search for related news articles.
A thorough analysis might lead a group to change their target. This shift might be from a
company over which a group has little power, to a regulatory agency that has a higher
degree of accountability to the public. In the case of billboard regulation, it is often much
easier to get the state and local governments to act than to pressure the billboard industry
into giving up a significant portion of their revenue (alcohol and tobacco advertising). In
the Baltimore case, messages were shaped and directed to elected officials and the people
who elect them, not billboard companies. In the case of the campaign against X brand
cigarettes, on the other hand, activists chose to target the manufacturer.
Case Study: XMarks the Target
X was a cigarette brand that, in order to sell cigarettes, exploited the strong, positive
sentiment that young African Americans have for Malcolm X. The brand was
manufactured by a small Massachusetts company, Star Tobacco Corporation, and
marketed and distributed by Duffy Distributors. X’s packaging, marketing, and low price
seemed to be lethal hooks the tobacco industry would use to snare more young African
Americans into addiction.
The effort to stop X brand cigarettes evolved out of a network of activists who had been
mobilizing African Americans and others around the targeted marketing of tobacco and
alcohol products. Almost exactly five years before the X campaign, this network worked
5
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.4 September 1998
together to stop R_J. Reynolds Company from launching Uptown cigarettes in
Philadelphia in 1990 and forced Heileman Brewing Company to withdraw PowerMaster
malt liquor in 1991. Both products appeared to target African American communities
This network was formalized as the National Association of African Americans for
Positive Imagery (NAAAPI) at a national meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina in early
Mobilizing the Community. Mobilization for the X campaign began when Brenda BellCaffee, director of the California African American Tobacco Education Network
(AATEN), saw a message about the brand posted on SCARCNet She itnmftdiatAly
aleited the NAAAPI network to develop a strategy for cutting the issue and identifying
audiences. The group concluded that the two small companies that manufactured and
marketed the cigarettes were more vulnerable and winnable targets than any relevant
public agencies. Therefore, the organizing strategy focused pressure and attention on
these companies. In addition, the group issued the companies a 10-day deadline to
withdraw the brand.
Involving the Media. The media played a critical role in forthering the effort by getting
the word out; articles on X appeared in more than 100 newspapers nationwide. BellCaffee, the Onyx Group's Charyn Sutton, and Brandy Griffin (then of Le Grant
Communications, a public relations firm, contracted to do AATENs media) approached
African American and corporate-owned media outlets with the story. Bell-Caffee had
strong relationships with African American-owned publications through her years as a
reporter for the Sacramento Observer and found the Observer and other newspapers in
the West Coast Publishers Association (a regional association of African American-owned
newspapers) particularly receptive.
The coalition worked to shame the target in two ways: they argued that X brand (whether
purposely or not) defamed an important leader and cultural icon, Malcolm X; and they
pointed out that the product was packaged in a way that was sure to attract African
American youths, thus placing their health at serious risk.
Winning! Succumbing to national pressure, Duffy Distributors issued a statement one
day after the deadline which—without any admission of wrongdoing—detailed their
commitment to withdraw the brand. Activists were elated, but held off their celebration
until after a declaration of victoiy in the media. Press conferences were held on both
coasts, with both Sutton and Griffin issuing regional media advisories to announce the
firm’s decision to abandon the brand in the face of community and public health concerns.
Expanding Benefits. Although the campaign lasted a little more than 2 weeks, its impact
on tobacco control recruits, media contacts, and more. AATEN found that churches and
parent groups were, by far, the most receptive to their outreach efforts. As a result of the
X campaign, AATEN was able to expand the number of churches participating in their
6
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No. 4 September 1998
Smokefree Sunday program statewide. X helped these institutions to see; the connection
between tobacco marketing and tobacco-related problems by raising tobacco beyond a
personal health concern and placing it on these organizations’ social and political agendas:
This issue really touched mothers more than anyone else; especially mothers in
church, organizations andPTAs. There werefathers and ministers, Black Student
Union groups and others, but it was the women who really came out, who made a
lot of the calls, who called AA TEN to see what they could do.
—Bell-Caffee
The campaign also helped to season new tobacco control leadership, as Bell-Caffee and
others honed their media advocacy skills as spokespersons. The group stayed on message,
cultivated new media contacts, and kept the focus on the company—not on the
stereotypical story of pathology and failing among African American youth. All of these
efforts, and the fact that their targets were such small companies ill-prepared for such
pressure, contributed to X*s quick demise.
Planning Strategies to Access the Media
/^nce an issue is identified and cut, and messages are developed that will reach and
influence your target, the next challenge is to gain access to the media in ways that
will get your message out. For disfranchised communities that do not fit the media's
primary demographic market, media access is a special challenge. Routine media
advocacy approaches (i.e., cultivating and leveraging press relationships) simply are not as
effective for these communities. As mentioned earlier, the lack of racial diversity in most
newsrooms and the difficulties that people in low-income communities face in developing
relationships with journalists are among the barriers to media access that advocates in
disenfranchised communities must overcome.
The rise of market-oriented (or sales driven) reporting has resulted in more focus on
affluent suburbs and less on communities with less buying power. For communities of
color—^particularly those with significant numbers of poor people—this means even less of
an opportunity to tell stories that affect their communities.
Given these barriers, advocates have to develop creative access strategies. Press events
that mobilize community support and draw out more controversial elements of issues are
highly effective in attracting the media. One early strategy in the effort to regulate
tobacco and alcohol billboards involved painting them over (or whitewashing) at highly
publicized gatherings. Reporters came out to cover these colorful acts of civil
7
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.4 September 1998
disobedience especially if they thought they could catch an arrest on film. But in
providing context for these dramatic events, activists focused attention on the cynical
efforts of tobacco and alcohol firms to target communities of color, and the health costs
and social inequities of such target marketing of dangerous products.
Other coalitions organized large-scale marches to generate media attention. Detroit
Councilwoman Alberta Tinsley-Williams’ Coalition Against Billboard Advertising of
Alcohol and Tobacco (CABAAT) has used this strategy effectively. More recently,
efforts to oppose Camel Menthol cigarettes have included sit-ins in retail establishments to
draw coverage and further politicize the issue.
Case Study: Milwaukee Makes Press A Picnic
When the Milwaukee Coalition Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (MCAADA) decided to
take on the overconcentration of billboards in its predominantly African American and
Latino "Center City," they knew they needed media attention if their initiative was to
succeed After all, much of Milwaukee ignored the problems of the area. It seemed to
many as if their neighborhoods were invisible to the press and policymakers.
Mobilizing the Community. The group knew they wanted to do a community-wide
billboard count. The count, in their estimation, would encourage family participation and
build awareness of the problem—while giving the coalition hard data on the issue. While
a count could engage hundreds of volunteers, how could it capture the attention of the
media? MCAADA found the answer by conducting the count as a one-day event.
Involving the Media. By recruiting large numbers of volunteers to form carpool teams,
the coalition divided the area into smaller regions for easy counting. The event started
with a rousing rally at a neighborhood park with local "celebrities." Reporters were
provided a guided bus tour of the area to observe the activities—and the issue—close up.
Results gathered by teams were posted on the park's scoreboard. These results not only
tallied findings but they also contrasted billboard placement in Center City neighborhoods
with the total number of billboards throughout the city. At the end of the day, final results
were announced and MCAADA showed participants their appreciation with a picnic
spread and music.
Winning. Their strategy was very successful, gamering media coverage on virtually
every media outlet in the area. Thanks to MCAADA's creativity and organizing efforts,
billboard regulation was on the news-and on the public policy agenda.
8
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No. 4 September 1998
Using the Media's Many Forms
dvocates in communities of color can gain media access by pursuing a wide range of
-zV media—much of it outside of mainstream press. For example, members of the
California Latino Tobacco Education Network routinely use Spanish-language media to
get the message out. California's Asian network, too, found the state's diverse Asian
media an important forum for framing issues. Sue Khoe la Vang! The Vietnamese
Community Health Promotion Project (VCHPP) is one of many ethnically focused
projects that use Asian-language opinion pages adeptly.
In pursuing specialized media, advocates “translate” tobacco issues to reach diverse
audiences in ways that are relevant to their own perspectives and concerns. VCHPP
director Ahn Le routinely develops articles and op-ed pieces for California's diverse Asianlanguage media. Le uses these media efforts not simply to promote issues of personal
health, but also to politicize tobacco in communities by linking industry practices to issues
their constituents care about. To this end, Le has written numerous policy-oriented pieces
including op-eds on targeted marketing and the expansion of the tobacco industry in Asia.
Advocates also work with institutional publications (i.e., newsletters and bulletins) to
gamer hard news coverage—a departure from their traditional purpose of promoting
events. To facilitate placement, advocates write and package "camera-ready” news stories
for ready insertion and publication. African American advocates report that faith
publications are an important resource in this regard.
Another important source for coverage has been "alternative” media—weekly local
newspapers, radio and cable programming that are committed to covering social issues.
Because advocates who work in communities of color already frame their issues within
larger social contexts, they are well prepared to work effectively with these outlets so they
can get more in-depth coverage.
For all of these advocates, developing new ways to ’’get the story out” is important—
especially when facing so many barriers to mainstream media attention.
ecause of the media’s often antagonistic relationship with disadvantaged
J—J communities, advocates working in these communities must take special care never
to let the media subvert the organizing goal. Media advocacy is a tool to support social
change. It cannot make change in and of itself. Effective use of media advocacy requires
that advocates have a clear organizing strategy of which the media are only a part. Think
9
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.4 September 1998
of media advocacy as a microphone. It's an important tool. It amplifies your message and
gets you heard. It can even capture your message and help make it a matter of record, but
the message must support your goals and objectives. If it is undermined by media bias or
the efforts of your opponents, it is worthless and can even be destructive.
Case Study: Knowing When to Walk Away
Occasionally, ifs better to leave the media alone.
The Coalition Against Uptown Cigarettes quickly formed after news spread of RJR's plan
to test market Uptown cigarettes—a. brand targeting African Americans—in Philadelphia.
Mobilizing the Community, The coalition was an extremely diverse gathering of health,
religious^ and community organizations led by African Americans working in the
Philadelphia community. They held their coalition together by agreeing on a number of
basic principles, including:
To organize broadly in the African American community, including smokers
To focus attention on RJR and not other African Americans or African American
organizations that might "be on the wrong side of the issue"
Phil^^ hia^
t0 stop test marketing the product in
an American community around this
issue.
Keeping the Media in perspective. With these understandings, the coalition saw the
media primarily as a tool to mobilize their community. The local media were more
important than the national media, and local media outlets that "spoke to" African
Americans were more important stilt Even though these principles were clear, it still was
not easy to maintain this agreed-upon focus.
after the first coalition meeting, the American Cancer Society (an Uptown
Coalition member)^received acall from the NewYork Times requestinga list of the
organizations that joined the coalition. For some, it seemed that the coalition should
comply with the request right away; after all, the Times is a newspaper of record for this
country and a media opportunity that they should not pass up For others, it seemed too
soon to publish the list Most African American organizations needed time to go through
their organization's endorsement process in order to be able to lend their formal support to
the effort.
10
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.4 September 1998
The coalition, at that time, consisted primarily of groups in the classic tobacco control
movement (e.g., American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association) and was
not yet representative of the broader African American community. There was concern
that the story would be that this coalition was made of "the same old players" and the
issue had gained little attention among broader segments of the African American
community.
The group decided to wait to release the list at an upcoming press conference when more
organizations could be announced. "And sure enough," says Onyx Group President
Charyn Sutton, then coordinating the coalition's media, "we got other African American
organizations and the Times didn’t go away. They understood.’’
The group faced a similar decision when ABC’s Good Morning Americarequested that a
representative come on the show to debate a marketing expert on the Uptown issue. The
marketing expert was African American and it was strictly against the coalition's principles
to engage in any activity that would pit them against other African Americans or African
American institutions in public. It was a clear call for the coalition, but less so for other
tobacco control activists nationwide who thought the Good Morning America appearance
would have been a good opportunity to promote the Uptown issue to a wider audience.
The coalition stood firm; the answer was no.
In addition to turning down Good Morning America, the coalition also turned down other
national news programs including The McNeil-Lehrer News Hour because their focus was
on the local community. *We would go to a local newspaper before we would go
national. Even though there was more glamour in the national media, it was a diversion.
Our task was the local piece. Our audience is in Philadelphia. The test market was in
Philadelphia and if we could win h, we would win it in Philadelphia, ** said Sutton.
Winning. The Uptown media effort was part of an overall plan to mobilize a community,
and the media strategy thus was driven by campaign goals—not the other way around.
Campaign goals informed the campaign’s choice of audience, media outlets, and the
composition of their coalition and coalition leadership, and they did not veer from those
choices. This kind of clarity in goal setting was key to the coalition-s success in keeping
Uptown cigarettes from ever seeing the light of day—in Philadelphia or anywhere else.
Significantly, RJR withdrew the brand nationwide. In fact. Uptown coalition’s insistence
on a local focus, and their unwillingness to let the issue degenerate into a debate between
African Americans over “what’s best for the community,” contributed to national success
beyond their local goals.
11
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.4 September 1998
Some Final Thoughts
/Clearly, the expenence and expertise of those doing groundbreaking advocacy and
V-/organizing work in communities of color provide many useful lessons. But if there is
IS
one key lesson to take home,” it is that media advocacy is not a panacea. It is an
effective tool for supporting policy initiatives. Like any other tool, it is most effective
when used appropriately and placed in its proper context. Hopefully, advocates of all
ethnicities can integrate the skills and tactics developed in communities of color into their
own comprehensive strategies, including grassroots organizing, message development, and
community mobilization.
In any case, groups in these communities will continue to push the envelope in tobacco
control, because there is so much at stake. As the late Paul Kelly, a Chicago-based
activist, put it back in 1991, "They're talking dollars. We're talking lives "
Makani Themba, Co-Director ofthe Praxis Project, Oakland, California, was the principal author ofthis
advisory.
J
12
Blowing Away the Smoke:
A Series ofAdvanced Media Advocacy Advisories
for Tobacco Control Advocates
A Project of the Advocacy Institute
Framing for Access
How to Get the Media’s Attention
Advisory No. 5
he news media set the public agenda: the more an issue is reported in the news,
the more people are concerned about it. If you want to keep tobacco issues on
people’s minds, you have to continually get those issues discussed in the news.
You have to get the journalists’ attention.
Be pragmatic about how the news works and what you need to do to be part of it. Learn
to think like journalists, to look for good stories, and bring them to journalists’ attention.
Think like ajournalist. Journalists can’t possibly cover every important story every day.
They only have a 22-minute news broadcast, or a limited number of newspaper pages, or a
few minutes at a time on the radio in which to tell all the news of the day. So to get
journalists’ attention, we have to emphasize what’s interesting about our stories.
Pitch stories, not issues. A reporter is far more likely to do a story on the 10 people who
died today in our town of tobacco-related diseases than on the topic of death from
tobacco in general.
Show why the story is newsworthy. Remember, at least two people must to want to do the
story: the reporter and the reporter’s editor (or TV news producer). Even if the journalist
is very eager to work with you, she still must convince her editor that the piece is worth
including with the rest of the day’s news—and she may have to convince her editor that
your story should be done instead of the one her co-worker is pitching. The more
ammunition you can give her to show why your story is newsworthy, the better she will be
able to argue the case for your story.
4H 1X0
05569
ft
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Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.5 September 1998
What's Newsworthy?
| get journalists attention and convince them to cover your stories, structure the
A stories to fit the traditional patterns of newsworthiness. Highlight the newsworthy
elements. Also, the broader the audience it interests, the more likely it is to capture a
reporter’s attention.
Typical Newsworthy Story Elements
Controversy♦Broad Interest♦Inj ustice+Irony
Local Peg>Personal Angle*BreaktbroughtAnniversary Peg
S easonal Peg<Celebrity<Visuals>Mystery and Drama
Human Interest*Evergreen
Controvert
Fights are common topics for news stories. The conflict might be
between politicians or political parties, or council members and
constituents. Most issues a media advocate works on are
controversial after all, if no one objects to the policy being proposed,
there is probably no need for a media advocacy strategy. What is the
likely opposition to what your group wants to do? How would you
describe it to a journalist? Think about the story line in terms of a plot
and characters: are there adversaries or other tensions in the story?
For example, in some news reports tobacco control advocate Stan
Glantz has been cast as “David” versus the tobacco industry’s
“Goliath.” Consider the following headline and lead from a profile of
Stan in the San Francisco Examiner (March 5, 1995); the dramatic
conflict between the scholar and the industry is what makes this story
interesting:
UCSF Professor Savors Battling Tobacco Firms
Anti-Smoking Scholar Enjoys Being I Thorn In Industry's Side
The Tobacco Institute calls him “personally offensive,” “fundamentally
unpleasant,” and prone to personal attacks against his opponents.
But Stanton Slants, 48, considered one of the most powerfill opponents of tobacco
in America, doesn't mind. Be sees his battle with some of the most wellconnected, moneyed corporations in the country as sport.
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Broad Interest
Does your story affect a lot of people, or relate to groups of special
concern such as children? The larger the number of people to whom a
story is deemed meaningful, the more likely it will be covered because,
ultimately, producing news is a business. A large audience means
higher revenues for the news outlets because they can charge more for
advertising. They seek stories that will be important or interesting to
the largest possible audience. Articulate those aspects of your story
that most of the audience would be concerned about, affected by, or
interested in.
For example, according to the research department at one news
station, stay-at-home moms watch the news at 5:00 p.m. They care
about their children (who do not watch), so stories about young
children are likely to be aired in the 5:00 newscast.
Every family is involved in one way or another with tobacco use: a
parent trying to quit, a teenager experimenting, a relative dying from a
tobacco-related disease. This is why television producers rate tobacco
stories among the highest interest stories.
Injustice
Are there basic inequalities or unfair circumstances that your story
illustrates? How did the injustice occur? Who is responsible for fixing
it? Exposing the consequences of an agency’s or person’s action is a
favorite topic for news.
A jumor high school girl in Pojoque, New Mexico, emphasized
injustice when she brought media attention to the fact that the alcohol
and billboard industries would not remove alcohol billboards within
sight of her school.1 After news coverage publicly shamed those
companies, the billboards were removed.
The behavior of the tobacco industry runs the gamut of corporate
injustice, from deception before Congress to exploitive and
manipulative advertising. The litigation brought by state attorneys
general and others have resulted in public scrutiny of secret industry
documents and conflicting testimony which continuously refuels stories
about tobacco industry unjustices.
Irony
Irony is the technique of saying the opposite of what you mean—and
can be the kind of dramatic contradiction that halts readers in their
tracks. Is there something unexpected that makes the situation in your
story different from others?
In California, the state department of health services used irony
effectively in a paid counter-ad depicting tobacco company
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Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.5 September 1998
executives swearing in front of Congress that they do not believe
nicotine is addictive. The images of the seven executives testifying
creates a strongly ironic impression because their claim ran counter
to the widely held belief of smokers and nonsmokers alike, that
cigarettes are addictive.
Most news is local, whether print or broadcast. What about your story
is important or meaningful to the local audience who buys the paper or
watches the news? If something is going on nationally that is
important to tobacco control, how does it translate in your town?
How can you illustrate that connection for reporters? Even networks
need a “local” example to illustrate the issue of national interest;
making national stories relevant to local audiences is a primary goal of
networks.
For example, in stories about how Mississippi Attorney General
Michael Moore won a settlement with the tobacco industry, reporters
tried to include information about whether their state’s attorney
general was seeking similar action. The Mississippi settlement was
national news, but in other states the questions that had to be
answered in news stories were: What is happening here? What is the
impact of the proposed national settlement on our city or state?
Personal
Angle
Most journalists seek a personal story through which to tell the news.
They look for that typical case, someone who can represent an
“instance” of the issue so audiences can empathize with the person and
feel concern for the problem. Is there a person with direct experience
with the issue who can provide an authentic voice in your story? Are
they willing to speak to a reporter and have they been adequately
prepared?
Any time a young person talks with a reporter after participating in a
compliance check, for example, they make the story of tobacco
availability easier to tell because it is no longer an abstract concept but
a specific event that actually happened; someone did something against
the law, a specific merchant sold tobacco to a specific underage teen.
The journalist has personal details with which to write a story rather
than general descriptions of an issue.
Breakthrough
A breakthrough is scientific drama, an indication that from here on,
things will never be the same. Does your story mark an important
historical “first” or other event? Is there evidence of change that can
be highlighted?
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Especially in science and medical news, if reporters can say that this is
the first time something has happened, or this new information answers
questions we’ve never been able to answer before, they are eager to
tell the story. (The unfortunate consequence of this desire among
news professionals is that the normally incremental process in scientific
and medical research gets distorted: “breakthroughs” are reported
when none are there.) If something is new or different about your
story, be sure to inform the journalist about what it is and why it is
important.
When the Journal of the American Medical Association printed a
series of reports on Joe Camel’s appeal to underage smokers, news
organizations across the country reported on the findings. While a
Gallup poll had shown that most people already believed cigarette
ads encouraged underage smoking,2 this was the first time that a
respected medical journal published research on the effects of the
Camel advertising, and the breakthrough lent drama and credibility to
the coverage.
Anniversary
Peg
Anniversary pegs, or milestones, are markers of progress or time
passed since a noteworthy event. News organizations are fond of
using time markers as a reason to re-tell a story or re-examine an issue.
Anniversaries are made salient by their history as news events.
President Kennedy’s assassination; the space ship Challenger’s
explosion; the Oklahoma City bombing; major earthquakes, fires and
floods, and other natural disasters. Milestones can be a useful device
to examine the effects of policy six months or a year after it is
implemented. A local group could renew interest in the issue of ETS
by issuing a report six months after a restaurant ordinance has passed
to announce an increase in business after a smoking ban. What news
or other events can you link to your issue? How long has it been—six
months, a year—since a key news event happened? How can your
story be associated with a local, national or topical historical event?
In Vallejo, California, a group of young people increased the
newsworthiness of a report on how easy it was for minors to buy
tobacco by releasing it on the 25th anniversary of the first Surgeon
General’s report linking smoking to cancer and heart disease.
Seasonal Peg
Because news organizations want the largest audience they can find,
they try to find stories on topics that affect everyone. The seasons,
and holidays, affect a broad audience: everyone feels the wind or
knows it is New Year’s Eve. At the same time, journalists are tired of
telling the same story again and again. One entertainment editor
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Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.5 September 1998
reported on a conference of her colleagues from around the country
desperate for a new way to do “Nutcracker” at Christmas time. Every
year, in all sections of the newspaper and on broadcast news, reporters
and editors do stories related to winter cold, summer heat, back-toschool stories at the beginning of September, Mother’s Day family
stories, New Year’s Eve and high school graduation drinking and
driving stories, Halloween giant pumpkin stories, and Thanksgiving
hunger stories. Each of these times presents an opportunity for new
angles on old stories if you can connect your issue for the reporter.
How can your story be attached to a holiday or seasonal event?
What about a petition calling on the tobacco companies to make a
New Year’s resolution to givie up “image” advertising that appeals to
young people? Or an April Fool’s Day release contrasting the public
statements of tobacco executives to conflicting internal documents?
Celebrity
Much has been written about media’s attention to celebrities, which
reached a heightened frenzy after Princess Diana was killed in a car
crash. A celebrity might attract news attention to your issue because
celebrities appeal to a large audience. A celebrity does not have to be
a movie star or a national figure; a local resident with special renown
can attract attention as well. Celebrities are no guarantee of attention,
and it is important to be sure of what the celebrity will say, as with any
public representative. Is there a celebrity already involved with or
willing to lend his or her name to your issue?
For example, Yul Brynner’s death from lung cancer, and the public
service ads he taped to be aired after his death, attracted attention to
smoking. Baseball hero Joe Garagiola has campaigned against the
association of sports with chewing tobacco. Actor Jack Klugman,
whose voice evidences the ravages of throat cancer, has become a
powerful spokesperson for strong regulation of tobacco marketing.
Visuals
What creative and interesting visuals can you provide with your story?
Pictures, especially moving pictures, hold an exalted place on
television news. Without visuals the story might not get told. “In
TV,” said one producer, “video dominates. Words define, shape,
reference the pictures. But it’s really the pictures that tell the story.”
An exciting visual can increase the likelihood a story will be done.
Even though viewers may have read about the story in the paper or
heard it on the radio, the local evening news is the first time they
would see it. For TV news, to a large extent, story selection is
determined by who has video or who can get it. On the assignment
desk in one local TV newsroom, the assignment editor would respond
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Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.5 September 1998
to story pitches by asking, “What would we see if we went there?”
Tobacco control advocates have successfully used videotapes of
young kids easily buying cigarettes from vending machines,
photographs of tobacco billboards next to school playgrounds, and
graphs showing the rise of tobacco industry political contributions
matching the rise in teenage tobacco use.
Mystery &
Drama
Are there mysterious or dramatic elements of your story that you can
highlight for reporters? The more severe and dramatic, the greater the
chance the story will be covered. For example, when otherwise
healthy people got the Hanta virus and two days later were dead, it
was covered by all the networks even though it affected relatively few
people. The story was among the top ten network stories in June
1993 3 The tragedy combined with the mystery made the story
newsworthy, despite the small numbers of people affected.
“Whistleblower” stories can create drama, as when former tobacco
lobbyist Victor Crawford, dying of throat cancer, movingly confessed
his transgressions and devoted his remaining days to tobacco control
advocacy. 60 Minutes lunged at the chance to tell his story.
The mysterious surfacing of “secret industry documents” also creates
drama and mystery. For instance, the leaked advertising campaign
materials for a new cigarette called “Dakota” were targeted at “the
virile 19-year-old woman.”
Stories on the “secret additives” to tobacco products have also created
interest and have given impetus to tobacco product regulation.
Human
Interest
Human interest means stories that show tenderness, compassion,
humor, or other positive human qualities. Stories about victims of
lung cancer or other tobacco-related tragedies are treated as human
interest stories. We care about them because we care about the
condition of humanity.
For instance. Vanity Fair ran an in-depth profile of Jeffrey Wigand,
the former head of research and development at Brown & Williamson
Tobacco Corp, who blew the whistle on the company’s attempt to
conceal research on tobacco’s addictive properties. The profile used
the compelling story of the tobacco industry’s campaign to discredit
Wigand as a way of highlighting the themes of credibility and
falsehood in wider tobacco policy battles.4
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A dvanced Media A dvocacy A dvisory No. 5 September 1998
Giant-killing heroes, like David Kessler or C. Everett Koop, or heroic
researchers like Joe DiFranza, whose studies showing young children’s
attraction to Joe Camel were met with industry bullying and
intimidation, also make good stories.
^Evergreen^
News workers use the term “evergreen” to refer to stories that they
can run any day because they are not pegged to an event and are of
general interest. Such stories are usefill to news organizations because
they can be kept in the files indefinitely and dropped into the paper or
broadcast to fill space when nothing else is pressing.
“Routine headache remedies” is an example of a medically oriented
story that is important to many people but not connected to any
specific time period—headaches happen all the time, so any time there
is space in the news might be a good time for a story on remedies. The
recent rise in teenage tobacco use in almost every community is just
such a story.
Tn deciding what to cover, journalists and editors place varying importance on the
± different criteria of newsworthiness. These elements become more or less important
depending on what else is happening, and there is always competition for journalists’
attention.
Selection Criteria
The more criteria that are satisfied, the more likely the story will be chosen. Though one
can identify standard criteria of newsworthiness, the story selection process is not
necessarily systematic. Editors consider whether the readership will care, logistical ease of
coverage, timing, and unforeseen factors.
Do I Care?
The first person the story has to be interesting to is the person who
decides to do it. The journalist—or editor who assigns the story—has
to care about it or believe that someone in the audience will care about
it. News workers ask themselves, “Do I Care?” If the news workers
care, logic allows them to assume that others in the audience would also
care, and to select stories on that basis. This way, news workers believe
they can anticipate what their viewers will respond to by paying
attention to their own responses As one bureau chief explained, “I like
to think that anything that interests me will probably interest
everybody.”
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Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.5 September 1998
Logistics
Simple concerns like parking and easy access to electrical outlets (for
camera operators’ lights) might influence whether a story is done,
especially if there are competing stories. An assignment editor might
choose which story to do based on which is easiest to do. Therefore,
advocates should consider logistics from journalists’ point of view when
creating news events.
For example, a San Francisco branch of the Dangerous Promises
coalition, which pressured alcohol companies to remove the sexist
unagery in its ads, used media advocacy to put the issue on the
public’s and the alcohol industry’s agendas. When the coalition
scouted billboard locations for its “Bloodweiser” counter-ad,
organizers selected locations close to television stations rather than
major freeways. Because the billboards’ target audience was the
leadership of the alcohol associations, not the general public,
orgamzers wanted to make it as easy as possible for reporters to cover
the story.5
Timing
News is immediate. The best stories are those still in progress. The
urgency that characterizes a newsroom exists because everyone is eager
to get the latest information on any story so it is as current as possible
and relevant today. Newsrooms receive a surprising number of calls
from people pitching stories that happened “yesterday.” Unless there is
significant interest and new information in the follow-up story,
yesterday’s news is not going to be covered today.
Serendipity
Serendipity plays a role in story selection because communication is not
systematic in the newsroom. Inside and out, it is whom you know,
whom you talk to, and what your personal interests are that guide what
gets on the air and what is included in a story.
The chaotic way information travels in newsrooms is why it is useful to
have many contacts at one outlet, and to deliver your information in a
variety of ways to several people. The constant movement in the
newsroom means one never knows whose paths will cross, or who will
be assigned to a story together. Communication is often decentralized.
While a distinct management hierarchy is responsible for final decisions
about what is included in the news, anyone in the newsroom can and
does pitch stories to anyone else.
Serendipity also means accepting that you can do everything right, and
still get no coverage. If an earthquake hits the morning of your event,
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Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.5 September 1998
or half the journalists you contacted get re-assigned by their editors,
you’re out of luck. If you find out early enough that something big is
going to preempt your story, it may be worth postponing your event.
Otherwise, toss up your hands, and better luck next time. Remember,
the time you spent was not wasted, even if there was little or no
coverage. The fact sheets and other background materials you provided
will educate journalists, and the relationships you strengthened can help
advance your issue in the future, even if your story didn’t get covered
this time.
How to Get in the News
Z^Xnce you have identified which elements of newsworthiness are present in your story,
v^/you can begin to strategize about what type of news presence would best accomplish
your goals, and how you might get that access. For instance, when an issue has not been
on the public or media agenda, or when you want to mobilize the local community as well
as communicate with policy makers, a colorful live press event such as a rally or festival
might be best. When you have specific arguments you want to advance on an issue that is
already being covered, an op-ed piece may best serve your goals.
Attention-Getting Options
The main options for getting attention to your story are to create news, piggyback on
breaking news, use the editorial pages, or buy advertising.
CreaieNews
Creating news means doing something that is worth telling a story
about. It can be as simple as issuing a report, presenting a demand, or
making a public announcement. News releases, news conferences and
rallies are common vehicles for creating news.
For example, in a Washington, D C., Junior League program, 6th and
7 grade, inner-city girls counted the cigarette storefront ads and
billboards they saw on their way to and from school each day. Their
reports were combined and disseminated to the press with a strong
message from the DC Health Commissioner, creating a good story that
dramatized the impact of such advertising on kids.6
Be sure to use your resources wisely. Too often people rush to put on a
formal media event, such as a press conference or rally. These events
take a great deal of time and energy to organize; if you are going to
invest those resources, first make sure that the event will be the right
thing to do. Often you could get the same news effect by sending a
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mailing and making follow-up phone calls, or by pitching an “exclusive”
story to just one interested reporter, rather than trying to attract dozens
ofjournalists to an event.
When deciding what kind of news event will work best for your story,
or whether to a have a formal event at all, consider the following
strategic questions:
Why do you want to have this event?
You should have a specific objective every time you seek media
coverage. Examples include: to call attention to an issue, to call for
action on the part of a government official or other target, to make the
public aware of an upcoming event, to establish your organization as a
credible source of information and leadership on an issue.
Is a news event the best way to reach those goals?
Sometimes you can be more effective with a mailing and follow-up
phone calls to selected journalists, or an editorial board visit. It takes
time and energy for reporters to come out to an event; try to save such
events for occasions that will really be worth journalists’ energy, and
yours.
What is the objective of this specific event?
If you are certain that a news conference, demonstration, or other media
event is appropriate, your next step is to focus on the outcome you want
from the event. Decide: What message do you want event attendees to
walk away with? You should have two or three focused statements
incorporated into all your materials. For example, if your event
dramatizes the ease of access young children have to cigarette vending
machines, your recurring statement might be, “We have good laws on
the books to keep this from happening but the law enforcement
authorities in this city aren’t enforcing them." Focusing on a single clear
objective lets you make the most of the media opportunity.
Why should the media be interested in covering your event?
Reporters have to create good news stories, and you will be more likely
to get coverage if you can plan in advance to provide them with
newsworthy elements. Highlight the parts of your story or event that
are unusual, interesting, controversial, or otherwise compelling for
journalists and their audiences, as described earlier in this advisory.
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Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.5 September 1998
Piggyback on
Breaking
News
Often news stories last only one day. You can expand news attention by
linking a breaking news story to your issue, an effective way to attract
news coverage or get a letter to the editor or op-ed printed. A breaking
news story can raise the salience of an issue for media gatekeepers. For
example, the death of a prominent smoker creates the opportunity to
focus on the role of tobacco and disease. A national story that focuses
on a relatively lesser hazard, like radon in homes, provides an
opportunity to piggyback with stories on both the synergy between
radon radiation and tobacco use, and the relatively greater risks of
tobacco use.
When you find a breaking news story that links to your issue, an
effective and relatively easy approach is to write a letter to the editor
pointing out the connection between the breaking story and your issue.
For example, if you see a story on state spending on medical care, you
could write a letter saying that it would be more cost-effective in the
long run to spend money on prevention approaches that reduce tobacco
consumption in the first place.
To test out this idea, pick up a copy of your local newspaper. Carefully
look through each section and look for opportunities such as the
obituary of a prominent smoker:
• Can you provide facts or a perspective that would localize a
national story?
• Can you expand the perspective to build on one of the local
stories?
Tobacco advocates have successfully used this strategy. For example,
when the federal government ordered a halt to all imports of Chilean
fruit because of the discovery of cyanide on two grapes, tobacco control
advocates converted this to a local story. Various communities held
news conferences emphasizing that the amount of cyanide in one
cigarette exceeded that found in several bushels of tainted grapes. This
presentation raised the policy issue of why the government would act so
quickly and restrictively on one product, while ignoring another
common but more lethal product.
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Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.5 September 1998
Use Editorial
Pages
The opinion pages provide a great opportunity for advocates. There
you can make a quick point and keep an issue alive. Writing a letter,
even a short one, is a good way to focus your ideas and sharpen your
points. If it’s published, you can make it “news you can re-use” by
copying the printed letter and distributing it to others—collaborative
members, funders, even opponents. Seeing your ideas and name in print
gives them status and credibility.
An op-ed piece gives you more opportunity to flesh out your ideas and
tell a personal story. This is probably your best chance to present an
extended argument to reach the decision makers you are targeting,
without having to rely on a reporter to translate your ideas for you.
Don’t overlook editorials. Editorial boards often get ideas for the
subjects of their editorials from community and professional groups
who meet with them to present a side of an issue. When you call to
request a meeting with an editorial board, be prepared to describe the
issue you want to discuss, your group’s position on it, and who will
attend the meeting. Prepare key points and facts in writing to leave
with the board, and be prepared with a back up plan if they choose not
to write on your issue. For instance, if they decline to editorialize, ask if
they would print an op-ed piece written by a member of your team. But
do not expect any commitments on the spot. Just think of this as an
opportunity to educate these influential gatekeepers, regardless of what
action they take in the near term.
Some groups have made presence on the editorial pages a priority,
with significant results. For example, in December 1997 the Orange
County Register reported that gun control was the number one topic
on its letters-to-the-editor page. This was due, in large part, to the
efforts of advocates who made it their job to respond to every anti-gun
control letter with their perspective and actively encouraged other
advocates to do the same. They were able to keep the issue on the
agenda and expand the coverage well beyond the original news event
that inspired the letters in the first place.
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Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.5 September 1998
BUy
Advertising
Sometimes advocates find that the best way to have ultimate control
over the content and timing of their media messages is to buy
advertising space. This allows groups to target a specific message very
narrowly; for instance, a group trying to pressure a few key Senators
might run an “editorial”-type advertisement to appear on the op-ed
pages of the Washington Post the day before a critical Senate vote.
Often, however, the benefits of paid advertising are outweighed by the
cost and limited reach of such ads, and by the fact that advertisements
inherently do not convey the same external sense of legitimacy that news
coverage does. However, one useful strategy used by some media
advocates is to design a paid advertising campaign with the express
intent of generating news coverage of the campaign. This leverages a
limited amount of paid media into a much larger “earned media” splash.
For example, the Center for Tobacco-Free Kids has used paid
advertising in the newspapers read by journalists and legislators to call
attention to escalating political contributions by tobacco interests.
Investigative reporters and others were stimulated to follow up with
stories on such contributions and to mention such contributions in other
tobacco stories.
Conclusion
[Respite the challenges outlined in this advisory, advocates should not be daunted when
-L/trying to attract media attention. Our stories are often inherently newsworthy
because they deal with important issues that have serious effects on large numbers of
people. In addition, tobacco control advocates are credible, powerful sources, contrasting
with the current view of the tobacco industry in a very dramatic and newsworthy way.
While it is important to plan how to attract reporters’ attention, don’t forget the second
half of the equation: what will you say and do once you have their attention? This
process, known as framing for content, is critical in influencing not just whether your story
is covered, but how; it is described in detail in the next Blowing Away the Smoke advisory.
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"References
^allack, L.; Dodrfman, L.; Jemigan, D.; Themba, M Media Advocacy and Public
Health: Power.for Prevention. Newbury Park: Sage, 1993.
2
Colford, S. and Teinowitz, I. "Teen Smoking and Ads Linked, All Tobacco Advertising
Could Be at Risk." Advertising Age, Feb. 21, 1994, p. 1.
3 Tyndall Report, 1993.
4 Brenner, M. "The Man Who Knew Too Much." Vanity Fair, June 1996, pp. 170-181,
206-216.
5 Woodruff, K. "Alcohol Advertising and Violence Against Women: A Media Advocacy
Case Study," Health Education Quarterly, 23(3):330-345, August 1996.
6
Horovitz, B. "Critics Say Bud Ads Too Ribbet-Ing For Kids," USA Today, June 1996.
15
Blowing Away the Smoke:
A Series ofAdvanced Media Advocacy Advisories
for Tobacco Control Advocates
A Project of the Advocacy Institute
I
Framing for Content:
Shaping the Debate on Tobacco
Advisory No. 6
Media “gatekeepers” do not merely keep watch over information, shuffling it here and
there. Instead, they engage in active construction ofthe messages, emphasizing certain
aspects ofan issue and not others. This creates a situation in which the media add
distinctive elements to the stream ofpublic discourse instead ofmerely mirroring the
priorities set out by various parties.
Gerald M. Kosicki1
etting your story into the news is only half of the battle. It is critical how your issue is
covered, not just whether it is covered. The way journalists shape news stories
influences what viewers and readers think about the issue and its possible solutions.
This advisory describes framing and suggests strategies to frame your stories in ways that
advance public health policies.
Whatis Framing?
L^rames are the boundaries around a news story that draw attention to specific parts of the
-L news picture, relegate other elements to the background, and leave other aspects out
entirely. Just as you make decisions whenever you shoot a snapshot—some conscious, some
instinctive—so journalists decide what to include in a story. Framing is the selection process a
journalist goes through when deciding what issues, ideas, images, and other elements should
appear in the news story.
Framing can also refer to the attitude or perspective on what is included in the story. This is
commonly considered the “angle” or “spin” on the story. Understanding frames in this way
means paying attention to the symbols, metaphors, or visuals that evoke a particular meaning.
For instance, the media have identified tobacco control advocates as “heroic Davids”
challenging corrupt tobacco giants and as “busybody social engineers” determined to suppress
the freedoms of adult citizens.
I
Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No. 6 September 1998
Why Are News Frames Important to Advocates?
r I ^he way issues are framed helps news consumers understand who is responsible for the
-L cause and solution of a problem. How the tobacco control movement is framed and how
the tobacco industry is framed will evoke very different responses from citizens who are not as
engaged in the issues as we are. For example, research on media effects shows that TV news
viewers typically will attribute responsibility for fixing the problem depicted to the people
involved with the problem. This results because the dominant frame in TV news emphasizes
isolated events or people and minimizes the larger social and physical landscape.2
Consider two ABC news stories broadcast on the same night in 1996. The first was a story
about ‘‘crumbling schools and no money to fix them” across the nation, complete with pictures
of dilapidated buildings, leaky auditoriums, and abandoned classrooms.
The story was framed in terms of institutional responsibilities to serve children in the
educational system, a social accountability frame. The onus was put on the government to fix
the problem.
The school story was followed by a “Person of the Week” feature about Camera Barret, “the
valedictorian who had no home,” a teen who, despite being homeless because of running away
after a violent argument with his mother, became valedictorian of his high school class. He
“had all the excuses in the world” not to excel, as the correspondent put it, yet he did excel,
winning a $16,000 scholarship to Cornell. In this story, individual achievement trumps social
justice concerns. There is no attention paid to ameliorating the terrible conditions that
affected Camera Barret (and thousands of youths like him). The Barret story has the typical
news frame—the great heart-tugging story of the triumphant individual who beats daunting
odds, the “young man who proved that will conquers all.”
The problem is that the second story virtually negates the first, an important story about
crumbling schools. It begs the question, is it really important to fix the schools when, as
Camera’s story proves, even kids in the worst conditions can succeed if they have the desire
and work really hard?
These two frames, institutional accountability and personal responsibility, are in constant
struggle in the news. Because our individual-oriented culture is reflected in most news
stories, audiences will usually identify personal responsibility as the solution unless they are
presented with equally compelling information that makes them consider broader factors.
If teenagers are depicted buying cigarettes from vending machines or smoking in shopping
malls, most viewers will focus on the irresponsibility of teenagers—not on the tobacco
marketers. But when 60 Minutes runs a story about former tobacco lobbyist Victor
Crawford dying of throat cancer and speaking candidly about the lies and deception of the
tobacco industry, people are more likely to focus on tobacco industry behavior than individual
responsibility.
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What Is A Public Health Frame?
’T7’ ey to a public health frame is problem definition. From violence to “road rage” to
J^^tobacco, we hear that a problem has become “epidemic.” The tendency is to medicalize
problems (e.g., alcoholism as a disease, smoking as an addiction) to reduce stigma, and to
advocate for more humane approaches to ameliorating the problem. A subsequent shift from
medical problem to public health issue serves to broaden the definitions of the problem, assert
a less moral and more pragmatic approach, and open the door for expanded participation by a
wider range of groups.
Seeing tobacco primarily as a personal issue effectively “blames the victim” by focusing the
cause of the problem and placing the responsibility for remedying it on the individual. In this
view, people who use tobacco are seen as having made a bad decision and lacking backbone
or willpower and so are held morally responsible. The behavior of tobacco executives and
government regulators is largely excluded from consideration, since smokers are seen as
exercising free choice.
Shifting the focus to a medical frame, where the smoker is seen as addicted, brings other
elements into the frame. Now cessation programs become important to augment will power,
and public education is needed to warn children of the dangers so they do not make bad
choices and start smoking. Doctors are given the responsibility of trying to heal patients by
providing encouragement or formal smoking cessation programs for smokers. Scientific
research explores the process by which addiction takes place, how the smoking-related
damage occurs, and which cessation programs are best for helping smokers quit. The moral
dimension of the problem diminishes as medical research increasingly suggests that the
individual may be powerless in the face of nicotine addiction.
The public health frame on tobacco expands this medical problem definition further.
Smoking is no longer only a personal or medical issue; it is also a social and political issue.
Public health analysis reveals that the decisions and policies of the corporate executives and
government regulators structure the environment that shapes the individual smoker’s
decisions. The primary focus from a public health perspective is on the behavior of the
policymaker, not the smoker. The goals become, for instance, to eliminate environmental
cues such as advertising and promotion that encourage tobacco use, and to protect
nonsmokers from ETS. The function of the public health frame is to highlight governmental
and corporate accountability as at least as important as personal responsibility in order to
gain supportfor necessary policy solutions.
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How CanAdvocates Frame Their News Stories
Froma Public Health Perspective?
I
Publ*c health frame may not automatically resonate with the media the way the
± prevailing values of individualism and the free market do. This means that while our
opposition can often get by with merely asserting something to be true, we must spend more
effort explaining why our position is true. For many, the fact that more than 40 million adults
continue to smoke despite clear warnings on the package suggests that smoking is an
individual choice. Their logic is: smokers know the risk, they have decided to take a chance,
therefore they should assume the responsibility. That logic is “natural” to many Americans ’
who put a high value on autonomy, personal choice, and responsibility. That logic is
continually reinforced by the public rhetoric of the tobacco industry.
Our challenge is to make our values and our story as vivid and compelling as the values and
stories about personal choice and responsibility. For example, Americans have long held the
view that shared responsibility and communal support are important values. Historians have
noted how early Americans were able to forge egalitarian bonds as they formed the nation.
Those values are still evident whenever communities band together to help one another other:
when neighbors stay out late searching for a lost child, when volunteers provide help after
natural disasters, or in the simple act of donating to charity. But the impulse toward collective
responsibility is not as dominant as the theme of individuals pulling themselves up by their
own bootstraps.
The following section presents several concrete techniques that advocates can use to make the
public health perspective resonate in their stories.
Translate
the individual
problem
into a social
issue
In the United States individualism is a primary value. People are
thought to be in control of their own destiny through the choices they
make. However, we know from the history of public health that the
major determinants of health are not personal choices but risks that
are external to individuals. Because the community is an important
context in which people live, the effort to improve health status
focuses on the rules, policies, and norms that define the community
environment. Translating the individual problem to a social issue
helps shift our attention from the individual to the collective, from the
personal to the policy, from factors that affect one person to factors
that affect entire populations and communities.
To put your story in a public health frame, emphasize social problems
rather than individual choices; talk about policies, not behavior. The
change in language from “smoking” to “tobacco” demonstrates this
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shift. “Smoking” is an act performed by an individual; “tobacco” is a
product that is manufactured, marketed, and regulated. The language
you use must always point to the broader environment in which
people are trying to make healthy decisions. What barriers limit their
options related to health? What elements of the environment could
support them? Illustrating the answers to these questions would help
journalists and their audiences understand the importance of
addressing solutions that go beyond help for individual smokers.
Assign primary Remember that most news consumers, unless given additional
responsibility
information, will assume that the person with the problem is
responsible for solving it. If television shows teenagers smoking,
most viewers will blame the teenagers as irresponsible. The most
sympathetic portrait of a struggling mom on welfare tends to lead
audiences to suggest that the solution is for her to try harder to find a
job or get help from family and friends.3 If we want audiences to
understand the public health perspective on problems, we must
constantly assert the corporate, governmental, or institutional
responsibility for the problem. This means talking about “the tobacco
companies and those the regulate them,” rather than about “smokers.”
Name the individual or body whom you hold responsible for taking
action.
Social justice is a core value in public health that can be emphasized
when talking to journalists about responsibility. There is no social
justice when there is a much heavier concentration of tobacco
billboards in poorer communities and communities of color than in
white middle- and upper-class sections of cities. Treating this as an
issue of social justice rather than just a problem of the free market
elevates the discussion to a higher level. Now the problem is not just
personal but how we allocate hazards (tobacco billboard density being
one) in our society. Those who have the least power and who are
marginalized because of historical discrimination disproportionately
bear the burden of hazardous exposure of all kinds.
However, merely saying that something is a social justice issue has
limited persuasive power. To convey the issue of fairness, develop a
story that personalizes the injustice and then provides a clear picture
of who is benefiting from the condition. It becomes a story about the
exploiter and the exploited. Tobacco control advocates have been
very effective in creating a story that shows powerful tobacco
company executives exploiting children and youths for profit.
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The key to advancing the socialjustice andfairness issue is to create
a story that leads people to say, “Thatjust isn yt right. There ought
to be a law. ”
Present a
solution
Journalists will always ask some version of two questions: What is
the problem? What is the solution you propose, or what do you want
to happen? The first question is fairly easy to answer. Public health
research generally provides abundant data and analyses, reports, and
books that describe the problem in great detail: who it happens to; its
distribution in the population according to age, gender, region, race,
and ethnicity; its effects and anticipated outcomes. We can speak
volumes about the problem.
Where we struggle is in answering the second question. We too often
offer vague statements like, “This is a very complex issue; the
community really has to come together” or “Children are our future.”
These answers may actually be counter-productive, as you may have
raised concern about the issue without giving people a specific
solution to consider. This is why we recommend that you never
attempt to get media coverage unless you have a specific, concrete
policy solution to offer.
Ultimately, tobacco control advocates want to lessen exposure to
toxic” influences (this could include secondhand smoke, advertising,
easy availability of cigarettes, etc.) and increase resistance as well
(through, for example, education). To do this we need to rewrite the
rules for how communities allow risks to be distributed; this is done
through policy.
For instance, if asked what needs to be done about smoking by
children, you should be prepared to say, for example, “We need to
raise the price of cigarettes through excise taxes or penalties on
cigarettes, because research shows that the best way to reduce youth
consumption of a product is to raise its price.” Or, “We need to
enforce the new ordinance which bans billboards in the city because
those messages are reaching our kids.” You do not list every possible
solution; you highlight the one your group has given top priority, the
one that most needs to be advanced today. This means knowing what
you want to say, and being able to say it simply. Practice with
colleagues until the answers roll off your tongue.
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Make a
practical
appeal
Because many people are entrenched in a victim-blaming perspective,
they may not respond to moral appeals about how preventing
tobacco-related illness is the right thing to do. The good news is that
public health solutions are usually winners from a practical as well as
moral perspective. Policy is important from a practical perspective
because it is cost effective. It lessens or eliminates the need to
continually provide remedial programs. A policy is more likely to
address basic causes of the problem, such as the availability of
tobacco products and regulation of where smoking takes place. You
should talk about how your solution will save money, enhance
productivity, save lives, or protect children (protecting vulnerable,
“innocent” children is still a function of government that most people
support). Give concrete examples of how your policy will benefit to
the entire community—not only those who suffer from the problem.
Develop story
elements
The challenge in tiying to influence a story’s frame is that the
journalists, not you, control what is included and excluded in a story.
But if you understand the business of news reporting and can
anticipate journalists’ needs, you can offer story elements, such as
those described below, that will make the reporter’s job much easier.
Compelling Visuals and Symbols. TV news in particular must have
good visuals. Often, TV news workers are seeking to illustrate
stories that have already been developed. For example, in a story on a
local military base closing, a TV producer requested video footage of
“Taps” being played as the flag came down for the last time. As it
turned out, this powerful, dramatic moment was not captured on tape,
and the story ran anyway; but, as the producer noted, “the pictures
didn’t sing.” For a print story, use metaphors and symbols that make
your story come alive in the readers' imaginations. A strong image
exploited by tobacco control advocates was that of tobacco industry
executives swearing before Congress that tobacco is not addictive.
In another example, a teenager bought a package of cigarettes from a
vending machine in the basement of a House of Representatives
building while wearing a T-shirt saying, “I am 14 years old.” The
irony of the teenager’s action drew attention to the problem of
tobacco availability. Tobacco control groups used the news attention
to highlight Congress’s failure to combat the tobacco industry and
enforce its own laws to remove the vending machines. The news
story was effective because it easily brought a picture to mind, first
for the journalist and then for the journalist’s readers.
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Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.6 September 1998
Media Bites. Despite the complexity and depth of your issue, you must be
prepared to make it come alive for news consumers in short “bites.” At
most, a source can expect to be heard for 15 seconds in a TV story, and a
few sentences in a print story. When you want to be in the news, you must
work within the realistic constraints of news time. Reporters usually
develop their stories with interviews of sources. At the beginning, when
gathering information, reporters may talk to you to get background on the
issue. These discussions could provide the reporter with direct quotations
for the story, but usually that will come later, after the reporter has a better
understanding of the issue and knows what could best represent a particular
aspect of the story. At that point, media bites become extremely important.
How do you come up with media bites? Practice with colleagues, trying out
different ways to describe the problem and convey your solution. Try to
speak to shared values, emphasizing themes such as fairness, common sense,
or protection of children. Talk about what is at stake: Who is affected?
What will this mean to people’s lives? And don’t be afraid to take a stand.
Successful media bites often convey some irony, sometimes comparing the
public health problem to another issue that people feel strongly about.
Three Examples
“Smokinga 4safer"cigarette
is likejumping out ofa 1 Othfloor window rather than a 12thfloor window. **
This media bite has been used by many advocates to respond to tobacco industry products
such as low-nicotine cigarettes or “smokeless” cigarettes that are implied to be safer for
consumers The goal of the media bite was to illustrate the absurdity of the product and
COnIpany “ itS attemPt 10 win P1*00 favord°mg something
“Having a no-smoking section m a restaurant
is like having a no-chlorine section in a swimming pool. ”
This media bite was widely used to describe the reason clean indoor air laws are
necessary. The analogy illustrates clearly why “no-smoking sections” don’t protect
people’s health.
“Smoking is a pediatric disease, ”
FDA Chair David Kessler made this statement in a speech in 1995, Kessler’s remarks
got national media attention; the headline in the New York Times was “Head of FDA
Calls Smoking Pediatric Disease.” The simple sentence makes more acceptable the
notion of holding the tobacco industry accountable because it highlights the damage
being done to children by the actions of the industry.
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Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No.6 September 1998
Social Math.4 Numbers can help substantiate claims about the importance
of public health problems. But too often advocates use huge numbers and
statistics that are overwhelming and hard to comprehend. “Social math” is
the practice of making large numbers interesting and compelling by placing
them in a social context that provides meaning. There are several ways to
do this: localize the numbers, compare them to something, and state the
effects of public policy.5 Many examples of social math combine these
approaches. The best social math surprises people and gives an emotional
tug; it paints a picture that helps people see what you are saying.
Examples of Social Math
In the 3 yearsfollowing the introduction of the Joe Camel advertising
campaign, sales ofCamel cigarettes to children and teens wentfrom $6
million per year to $476 million per year: over $1.3 million in sales a day.
This comparison illustrates the enormity of the problem of cigarette sales to
minors and clearly shows the relationship between the tobacco industry’s
marketing strategy and the behavior of its target audience: children.
Tobacco companies spend about $5 billion a year
to advertise and promote their products; that translates to about
$13.7million a day. $570,000per hour, or over $9,500per minute.
This example takes a huge number and makes it manageable. Even better
would be to go the next step and state what $570,000 an hour might buy
instead. For example, you could compare the amount the tobacco industry
spends to advertise tobacco eveiy few hours to the amount your state
spends to prevent tobacco use every year.
Vice President Gore said:
"Nearly as many Americans die every dayfrom the effects of smoking
as died on that one day 85 years ago in the sinking of the Titanic,"
This example compares something society is often complacent about - the
large number of annual deaths from tobacco related causes - to a tragedy
that caused far fewer deaths yet captured much more attention. It is an
effective reminder that even though deaths from tobacco do not occur all at
the same time or in such a dramatic fashion, they are still a tragedy and can
be prevented.
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Authentic Voices. Put journalists in touch with people who have had direct
experience with tobacco-related problems such as family members who have
lost a parent to tobacco use or parents whose children have been influenced
to smoke by Hollywood films which depict smoking as sophisticated and
glamorous. Reporters require a personal story to illustrate the topics they
cover.
Fortunately, many tobacco control advocates have directly experienced the
problem and have become active in the public health battle to address it.
These “victims” have unique power to shape news coverage through their
authentic stories. In fact, they have transformed themselves from victims to
advocates.
If you arrange for such people to talk with journalists, work with them in
advance so they feel prepared and comfortable. Also, they should be able to
talk about the policy solution, just as any other media advocate would.
Media advocates should be prepared to shift from their personal experience
to the policy issue. For example, journalists will ask someone who has
suffered a loss, “How do you feel about what happened?” This question
would be the starting point for a statement that illuminates who shares
responsibility for prevention, such as, “I feel angry that the city council will
not respect my right, and my family’s right, to breathe clean air. They must
pass the clean air ordinance now.”
Conclusion
VYThat do we accomplish with framing? We tell a coherent and compelling story that
V V reflects our view of the cause and solutions to public health problems. Framing points
the audience to the solution we support. To frame your issue effectively, remember to:
•
Know what you want to say before trying to attract media attention or talking to a
journalist.
•
Anticipate different ways to shift from the inevitable questions that imply the
problem is one of personal responsibility to answers that highlight the institutional
accountability.
•
Prepare several illustrations to support your points, using compelling visuals, social
math, and other good story elements.
News coverage of an issue lends it credibility and legitimacy. By planning in advance to frame
your issue from the public health perspective, you can increase the likelihood not only that you
will get the coverage, but also that your issue will be covered in ways that increase support for
the public health policies you promote.
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Advanced Media Advocacy Advisory No. 6 September 1998
R^feeences
fcosicki, Gerald M. Problems and Opportunities in Agenda-Setting Research. Journal of
Communication 1993; 43(2): 100-127.
2Ryan, Charlotte. Prime Time Activism. Boston: South End Press, 1991.
Iyengar, Shanto. Is Anyone Responsible? Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1991.
4For a primer on social math, see Blowing Away the Smoke Advisory No. 2t By the Numbers:
A Guide to the Tactical Use of Statisticsfor Positive Policy Change.
5Pertschuk M and Wilbur P: Media Advocacy: Reframing Public Debate. Washington DC:
Benton Foundation and the Center for Strategic Communications, 1991.
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