sample="quota" bates="682341727" isource="bw" decade="1980" class="ui" date="19831020" KENDRICK FYI 20/20 TELECAST GROWING UP IN SMOKE October 20, 1983 Opening Remarks: Narrator: On the ABC news magazine, 20/20, tonight, kids under 21, America's youngsters, are they the new target for cigarette manufacturers? John Banzaff: You want to get them as young as 10 and 12 and 14, get them interested in your product, get them hooked before they understand the dangers. Narrator: Spokesmen for the industry say no, but cigarette advertising is everywhere--sporting events, rock and jazz concerts, billboards, magazines and giveaways. Consumer reporter, John Stassel, challenges the industry, their money and their methods, in "Growing Up in Smoke." Hugh Downs: Up front tonight, turning your child into a smoker. Is there a campaign to addict a new generation of smokers? For almost 30 years, the research and the warnings on the many harmful effects of cigarette smoking have multiplied. But, where in 1954 the number of cigarettes sold was 387 billion, this year's estimate is 617 billion. Now one fact that may help clarify this odd progression of events is that more money is spent for promoting cigarettes than for any other product and some of this promotion seems aimed at children. A viewer sent us a complaint on the impact of that promotion and consumer correspondent, John Stassel, has been investigating. John. John Stassel It is sort of strange, the biggest killer is America's most advertised product. And the letter we received raised two complaints. First, are magazines and newspapers censoring negative information about cigarettes to protect the big money they make on cigarette ads. Second, are tobacco companies finding new ways to make cigarettes appeal to children? Of course, the companies had to find new ways of advertising when their commercials were kicked off television. (Commercial) Smoke anywhere and you'll enjoy the cigarette of fine tobacco, Lucky Strike. Stassel: It was twelve years ago that cigarettes were banned from radio and TV. (Commercial) Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch. Stassel: I'd forgotten what these ads were like. It's amazing to watch them now. (Commerical) Winston tastes good like a cigarette should. (Commercial) Showing Marlboro commercial while Stassel continues. Stassel: The growing evidence that these products were killing people eventually led to their ban from broadcasting. The tobacco companies, however, still claim that health hazards haven't been proven. We asked Philip Morris, R. J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorrilard to appear on this program. None would. They told us to talk to the Tobacco Institute. The Institute said Anne Browder would speak for them. Browder: The case is still open. The jury has not come in. Stassel: It may not be harmful. ? You're not convinced. ? Browder: It may be or it may not be. We don't know. Stassel: How can you say it might not be harmful, yet most of the people who die of lung cancer smoke? I mean, how can there not be a connection? Browder: We are certainly aware of the fact that people die on a daily basis. Some of them are smokers and some of them are not smokers. (Commercial) Call for Philip Morris. Stassel: Even though they say they're not convinced that cigarettes kill, tobacco companies say they voluntarily cancelled their radio and TV ads before Congress banned them. Why? Because the broadcast media has grown to a position of unique appeal for young people. It is kids, of course, who are the most vulnerable, but tobacco companies claim they've never wanted kids to smoke. Browder: We feel very strongly that cigarette smoking is an adult custom that one should not even consider until they've reached the age of maturity. Stassel: What's maturity? Browder: Anyone over the age of 21. Stassel: But studies show that 80% of all smokers started before they were 21. (Interviews with young people) "I started smoking when I was 14 years old." "Everybody was smoking. And I thought it made me feel terribly grown up." Stassel: That's where the market is. There's no point in attracting somebody at 60. Anti-smoking advocate John Banzaff (?): You want to get kids, you want to get them as young as 10 and 12 and 14, get them interested in your product, get them hooked before they understand the dangers and then hope that they'll stay with your brand. Stassel: The tobacco industry denies it. Stassel: Reynolds Tobacco says they fire people who violate the sampling code. We tried to ask the samplers about all this, but they said they've been told not to talk to the media. This videotape made last winter by the Chicago Lung Association shows young people being given Bright cigarettes. Sixteen year old Joe was given a pack. So was Paulette, she's 18. And Chris, he's 19 Seven of nine young people who asked for cigarettes got them. Stassel: So when the Chicago Lung Association sent people out, kids got them. Browder: I cannot address that. I can tell you what the sampling code is for cigarette manufacturers and the sampling companies are sworn to adhere by that code. Stassel: But they don't obey it. Browder: They are supposed to obey it. Stassel: Maybe they're breaking their code in movie theaters, too. This is a commercial for KOOL cigarettes. This summer Brown & Williamson began running ads for KOOL and BARCLAY at some 3,000 movie theaters. They wouldn't give us copies, so we filmed them off the movie screen. The KOOL ad was shown at this theater in Newton, Massachusetts, right before a performance of Snow White. Brown & Williamson says that was a mistake. It should only run before R and PG films. Of course, PG means the cigarette ad could run with kids' pictures like Star Wars and Superman. A group called Action for Children's Television has petitioned the government to ban the ads, calling it peddling cigarettes to kids. Brown & Williamson denies the charge. Even if the movie advertising were banned, there'd still be cigarettes in movies popular with kids. These pictures are from Superman II. Marlboro, made by Philip Morris, is shown at least 13 times. They're able to equate their product in the minds of people with a super hero. Somebody who is squeaky clean. And that association occurring over and over and over again in the movie is bound to have an impact, particularly on young, impressionable minds. Corporations acknowledge that they like to get their products in movies. It's another form of advertising. I asked the Tobacco Institute why Marlboro's were shown so often in Superman II. Browder: Do you think cigarette manufacturers had something to do with that? Stassel: Yeah, I think that... Browder: Cigarette manufacturers don't make movies. Stassel: But what do you think, that the moviemaker just showed Marlboro on his own? Browder: Perhaps the moviemaker was a Marlboro smoker. Stassel: We tried to ask the moviemaker, but he wouldn't talk to us. Philip Morris wouldn't comment on the financial arrangement except to say they didn't pay the producers cash. Maybe, of course, it doesn't matter. Kids see the billboards all the time. Tobacco companies spend so much money on advertising that in nearly every other billboard in America promotes cigarettes. Browder: I think the cigarette manufacturers have the right to advertise their product. I thin they have the right to sponsor a variety of events as they do. I don't think it's illegal, so why not? Stassel: The problem with cigarettes is that they're all around us and the advertising promotion is all around us and we become used to the idea that they're just familiar artifacts of daily life. And it's terribly hard to keep in mind that they really are a terrible killer. And what happens when a killer is also America's most advertised product? Can that affect the information we get about cigarettes? You bet it can. (Commercial) You've come a long way baby to get where you got to today. Stassel: When cigarettes were taken off television, there was suddenly millions of advertising dollars looking for a place to go. Most of it went to newspapers and magazines. Let's look at the effect on one small publication, the Twin Cities Reader, Minneapolis. Last year, the Twin Cities Reader assigned a reporter to do a story on the KOOL JAZZ Festival. It was the first time the Festival was being held here in Minneapolis. A reporter wrote about the music, about who was coming and at the end of the article, he questioned whether a cigarette company should be sponsoring the Festival. He said the diseases cigarettes cause are un-Kool. The reporter was Paul MacCabee. The day after the article appeared, he was fired. Stassel: Now in some publications, the question never comes up because they don't accept cigarette ads. Here are some examples (show Good Housekeeping, Seventeen, Reader's Digest). These publications say they don't want dangerous products advertised to their readers. The American Council on Science and Health surveyed magazines and concluded that those who do not accept cigarette advertising give much more thorough coverage to the smoking and health issue than those that do take the ads. The Council cites these magazine as the worst. The magazines say their coverage of the issue has been adequate. And they deny trying to protect the advertisers. But I know it happens sometimes. Family Circle magazine, for example. The publisher denies that cigarette articles are censored. Yet a few years ago the magazine asked me to write an article and said, don't write about cigarettes. It might offend our advertisers. Family Circle carries about $16 million in cigarette ads. Sometimes magazines even turn down money to avoid offending tobacco companies. Daymen Reingold is a hypnotist who runs anti-smoking clinics in several cities. He wanted more people to know about his clinics, so he asked his ex-wife, who's in the promotion business, to place some advertising for him. They ran into obstacles. Reingold's ex-wife: My first magazine that I had zeroed in on, that I wanted to work with was Psychology Today. Stassel: But when she tried to place the ad, Psychology Today told her... Reingold's ex-wife: No, this is not acceptable. So I thought well then it's the ad concept, and I had at least 15 different ad concepts drawn up. Stassel: Finally, the person in charge of advertising told her... Reingold's ex-wife: Actually, I don't think any of these are going to be acceptable. We have a lot of money that comes in from tobacco companies, and frankly, we don't want to offend our tobacco advertisers. And I thought, how can you say that to me. I mean, you're Psychology Today, don't you really care about the health of your readers. She looked at me and she said, well you know Grace, you're going to run into this problem wherever you go. Stassel: She went to Cosmopolitan. When Daymon Reingold called to place the ad, Cosmopolitan's advertising director told him, now way. Reingold taped the conversation. (tape) Cosmopolitan ad director: "I can't accept it. We get 200 pages of cigarette advertising." Reingold: "You're telling me there's going to be a problem or an obstacle here." Ad director: "Well, am I going to jeopardize $5 or 10 million worth of business? What would you do if you were the advertising director of a magazine that had preponderance of that type of business and somebody wanted to run one ad telling everybody, don't smoke." Stassel: I hoped the publishers of Cosmopolitan or Psychology Today would appear on television to talk about their policies, but they would not. On the phone, both said they have no general policy on anti-smoking ads. Psychology Today's publisher said the reasons they reject ads are confidential. And Cosmopolitan's publisher said he can reject any ad for any reason, and that's true, but is it fair? Reingold: We ought to be able to get our message out across to the public also. Reingold (?): I think money is what's to blame really, big super dollars, $1.24 billion a year in advertising tobacco money every year. That's $4 for every man, woman and child in America today. That's an awesome, staggering kind of thing. And I think that's where the power really is. Hugh Downs: John, do you really think tobacco companies coerce magazines and newspapers not to run the articles or the anti-smoking ads? Stassel: I don't think so, Hugh. I have no evidence that any tobacco company tells a magazine, don't run that. They don't have to. As Daymon Reingold puts it, it's the money. Because the tobacco companies buy so many ads, the publication sometimes sensor themselves for fear of losing that money. And incidentally, Cosmopolitan magazine now says it may run that anti-smoking ad after all. They said they didn't run it before because the magazine, they say, never received it. Of course, Cosmopolitan said all this only after we called and told them we were going to talk about this on television.