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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 22, 2014)
Opinion Tobacco Settlement Excludes Black Media “Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now” B ERNIE F OSTER Founder/Publisher B OBBIE D ORE F OSTER Executive Editor T ED B ANKS Advertising Manager J ERRY F OSTER Account Executive L ISA L OVING News Editor H ELEN S ILVIS Multimedia Editor B RUCE P OINSETTE Reporter D AVID K IDD Graphic Designer M ONICA J. F OSTER Seattle Office Coordinator J ULIE K EEFE S USAN F RIED Photographers The Skanner Newspaper, established in October 1975, is a weekly publica- WASHINGTON (NNPA) – The U.S. Justice Department and the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund have reached an agreement with the four major tobacco companies that requires them to spend more than $30 million advertising with the three major television net- works and run full-page ads in 35 White and Hispanic newspapers as well as purchasing space on their respective websites but not make a single purchase from a Black print or broadcast media company. The 24-page proposed consent agreement, reached Friday, was scheduled to go before U.S. Dis- trict Judge Gladys Kessler in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday, Jan. 15, for final approval. The pro- ceeding has been rescheduled for Jan. 22. “We are shocked and deeply dis- appointed that the Justice Depart- ment, the Tobacco-Free Action Fund and the tobacco industry would all agree to sign off an advertising plan that totally disre- spects the Black community,” said Cloves C. Campbell, chairman of the National Newspaper Publish- ers Association, a federation of nearly 200 Black newspapers. “The industry’s past efforts to tar- get African-American consumers have been thoroughly document- ed. It is sad that an industry that sought to exploit our community with a product that is harmful to our health now seeks to further devalue African-Americans by tion, published each Wednesday by T HE C URRY R EPORT George E. Curry ignoring the Black media when it is being forced to atone what a federal judge determined was a deliberate effort to deceive the American public.” News, published by Ken Smik- le. The Chicago-based publica- tion said an advertising source placed the value of the total buy at $30 million to $45 mil- lion. The advertising campaign, which won’t go into effect until all appeals have been exhaust- ed by the tobacco companies, was agreed to as part of a set- tlement that found tobacco companies mislead the public about the dangers of smoking. The four defendants are: Altria, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Lorillard and It is ironic that the tobacco industry is bypassing Black media while complying with a federal order to disclose its deception when in the past it used the Black media to target African-American consumers Peter S. Hamm, director of com- munications for the Tobacco-Free Kids Action, said on Monday that the media outlets were selected by Judge Kessler and disclosed in an order issued Aug. 17, 2006. Hamm said he did not know how she determined what media outlets would be utilized to carry the newspaper ads and television commercials. The story of the agreement was first disclosed by Target Market Philip Morris USA. The U.S. Justice Department filed suit against the cigarette manufacturers on Sept. 22, 1999 charging that they had violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrup- tion Organizations Act (RICO). They were found guilty at the con- clusion of a trial that lasted from Dec. 21, 2004 to June 9, 2005. Judge Kessler wrote a stinging opinion, saying that the case “is about an industry, and in particular these Defendants, that survives, and profits, from selling a highly addictive product which causes diseases that lead to a staggering number of deaths per year, an immeasurable amount of human suffering and economic loss, and a profound burden on our national health care system. Defendants have known these facts for at least 50 years or more. Despite that knowledge, they have consistent- ly, repeatedly, and with enormous skill and sophistication, denied these facts to the public, to the Government, and to the public health community… In short, Defendants have marketed and sold their lethal products with zeal, with deception, with a single- minded focus on their financial success, and without regard for the human tragedy or social costs that success exacted.” The judge prohibited the compa- nies from committing similar acts going forward and ordered them to make “corrective statements” about the lies they had told about the dangers of smoking. Kessler’s ruling was unanimous- ly upheld March 22, 2009 by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. On June 28, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to accept an appeal. Read the rest of this story online at www.theskanner.com IMM Publications Inc., 415 N. Killingsworth St., P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228. Telephone (503) 285-5555. E-mail: info@theskanner.com World Wide Web site: http://www.theskanner.com Fax: (503) 285-2900 The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Associ- ation and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re - spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. © 2014 The Skanner. ALL RIGHTS RE SERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION PROHIBITED. To see The Skanner News on your smart phone go to theskannermobile.com or scan this QR code with your app. • • • • • • • • Local news Opinions Jobs, Bids Sports Entertainment Music reviews Bulletin board RSS feeds The GOP’s Curse of the ‘Golden Boys’ I sn’t it time to think of the Republican Party’s quest for the presidency as haunted? That’d be a good ques- tion to put to Chris Christie, the latest GOP “golden boy” trying to get his feet out of the political clay. Two months ago, the robust New Jersey governor, having forged a landslide re-election in one of the most solidly Democrat- ic states in the nation, was being widely celebrated in the media as the odds-on favorite, at least for the moment, for the GOP 2016 presidential nomination. Now, however, the media – except for the conservative echo chamber – is busy pulling at the threads of Christie’s entire political career to see what falls out in the unravel- ing. The reason for the stark reversal, of course, is “Bridge-gate” – the caper of last September in which, e-mails shows, several of Christie’s closest aides and politi- cal appointees engineered for four consecutive days a massive rush- hour traffic jam at the Fort Lee, N.J. entrance to the mammoth George Washington Bridge. That action, apparently intended as political revenge against one or more Democratic officeholders, now threatens not just Christie’s chances of gaining the 2016 presi- dential nod but his retaining his governorship as well. It’s too early to plan Chris Christie’s political obituary, of course. But it’s not too early to consider a stark fact about Repub- lican Party politics of recent years Page 4 The Seattle Skanner January 22, 2014 NNPA C OLUMNIST Lee A. Daniels his sudden troubles underscore. That is that Chris Christie is just the latest of a select group of Republican elected officials who were briefly widely celebrated as possessing presidential star power – before being quickly damaged by a controversy almost complete- ly of their own making. For example, consider that in 2006 Virginia Senator George F. Allen’s re-election campaign was seen as an easy stepping-stone to the 2008 GOP presidential nomi- brightest national prospects, only to have blatant ethical impropri- eties soon muddy his “Mr. Clean” image. As he left office this month, many expect a federal cor- ruption indictment to soon follow. There are several others I’d also include in this group: Texas Gov. Rick Perry, supposedly destined for a prominent role in the 2012 presidential sweepstakes until his laughable performance in a pri- mary debate marked him as not ready for prime time. The Rom- ney-Ryan 2012 ticket itself, which, starting with the Republi- can National Convention, did its “best” to destroy its seeming advantages over President Obama. It’s too early to plan Chris Christie’s political obituary nation – until Allen at a campaign rally tried to humiliate a young Indian-American Democratic campaign worker filming him with a video camera by calling him “macaca.” In the ensuing controversy Allen could never adequately explain why that strange word wasn’t meant as an ethnic slur, or explain away his long history of privately expressing support for the Confed- eracy that the media then discov- ered. His campaign rapidly sank. And consider the stunning fall of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who took office four years ago marked as one of the GOP’s And, yes, I’d also include the McCain-Palin ticket of 2008. She was supposed to be the “golden one” in that duo – until she quick- ly proved herself the most unqual- ified nominee on any national ticket in the history of the Repub- lic. The only comparable “golden- boy” phenomenon at the top of the Democratic Party was the tawdry adultery scandal that enveloped former North Carolina Senator John Edwards. But that came to light after Edward’s once-blazing political prospects had already dimmed considerably in the 2008 presidential primary. Further, this “flawed golden boy” dynamic at the top of the GOP has been mirrored during the last four years among nearly half a dozen Tea Party insurgents who defeated establishment Republi- can officeholders in primary bat- tles but whose political extremism ultimately cost the GOP seats in the House and Senate. What this series of a self-inflict- ed sabotaging of the Party’s prospects suggests, as does other evidence, is that as the GOP has become more and more extreme, it’s lost more and more of the organizational discipline of a tra- ditional American political party. Those – for example, today’s Democratic Party—have always been coalitions of significantly diverse political interest groups that by the very nature of party politics accepted the necessity of compromise. But a substantial segment of conservative extremists within today’s GOP – the Tea Party fac- tion – rejects the idea of compro- mise, even with their less ideological GOP confederates. The last two presidential elec- tions have shown that’s not a road leading to the White House. Which strongly suggests that the GOP itself does not have a golden future. Lee A. Daniels is a longtime journalist based in New York City. His latest book is Last Chance: The Political Threat to Black America.
