This media bias really hacks me off
Saturday, March 6, 2010 Woke up this morning to find the following story all over the media: "Ash calls for 5% increase in tobacco tax" (BBC News), "Call for 5% rise in tobacco tax" (Press Association), "Anti-smoking group urges 5% rise tobacco tax" (ITN News).
All these stories read like an ASH press release. There is not a single comment opposing the idea of a tax increase on tobacco (large or otherwise). Click on the image above to see the ITN report. It's a classic piece of propaganda. Goerbals Goebbels would be proud.
You would think, at the very least, that someone would have spoken to the Tobacco Manufacturers Association (if not Forest) because the TMA does a lot of lobbying on this issue.
But no.
So, this morning, between eight and nine, while you were asleep or munching on your Weetabix, muggins here has been ringing around the BBC, the Press Association etc to complain (in the nicest possible way) about what I can only call the institutionalised bias that is once again evident in the smoking debate.
Of course it's too late for this story but this sort of thing makes me so cross it actually makes me even more determined never to give up.
Simon Clark
For the benefit of any journalist or politician reading this (no, I haven't completely lost my mind - Vince Cable is one of Forest's followers on Twitter!), here is my response to ASH's call for a five per cent hike in tobacco taxation:
"The only people who will benefit from raising tobacco taxation are the criminal gangs who will smuggle millions of cheap cigarettes into the country from Eastern Europe and elsewhere.
"These cigarettes, some of them counterfeit, will go on the black market where they will be sold in pubs and on street corners, often to children.
"As a result of smuggling the Treasury could lose up to £3 billion a year, which the country can ill afford in the present economic climate.
"Raising taxation on tobacco hits the elderly and the low paid the hardest. Why should they be discriminated against?"
Simon Clark
09:26 ... The Press Association has just sent me an email: "Your statement is now running on the PA wires". Thanks but unfortunately it's too late. The story has already run.
09:36 ... The BBC says it will update its report to include a quote from Forest but no sign of it so far.
10:13 ... I have just emailed the BBC to ask them to let me know when they will be updating their story to include our response. I hope I don't have to phone the newsdesk again. This is the weekend, for heaven's sake!
10:40 ... BBC story updated HERE.
Time for a strong coffee and the Saturday Telegraph. Damn, I've missed most of Danny Baker on Five Live!
Simon Clark
I should have kept my mouth shut. I have just been asked to take part in a discussion on this issue at 4.00 4.45pm on the BBC News Channel. (According to a producer, I have been invited "in the interests of balance".)
So now I have to drive to the BBC studio in Cambridge. The original plan - a late lunch and a quiet afternoon in Ely - has been shelved. I am not very popular at home!
Reader Comments (26)
Of course ASH wants an increase - it must be feeling the pinch, too, in these recessionary times - especially when it raises so little for its coffers from volunary donations.....
Simon -
Once again - thanks for all you efforts.
You, of course, are scarcely alone in being hacked off with such a clunkingly obvious case of Media Bias - regardingly a Perfectly Normal Human Activity (I know, I know).
Yet there must be SOME proper journalists left these days who aren't called Booker, Littlejohn, Monckton, Liddle, or Pilger.
Journalists, that is to say, who do old-fashioned journalistic things such as Ask Awkward Questions, Doubt The Official Account, and Ferret Out The Truth.
The fact that such paragons now seem to be in such short supply raises the following question:
Is it the result of Censorship From Above (Soviet style)?
Or,
Is it the result of Censorship From Within (ditto) ?
Perhaps someone on the inside would kindly let us know.
Even if the Fourth Estate HAS been taken over by Global Property Developers and Corporate Spivs..........
I saw the report and wondered why there was no opposition view and thought to myself what a bunch of Bull. Propaganda is a better term. I want to thank the author for putting my feelings into words so much better than I could. Do you think the people will ever wake up and see what the government and narrow minded people are doing to our few and rapidly fading liberties?
Censorship from within.
Like this story, what they do is just release it with out telling anybody.
I'ts the same mentallity you get from a child when they state.
Not tellin ya !
I'ts the Fake charities that need to be exposed.
It is the Fake charities who cause this and who release these "hate statements" unopposed or unquestioned .
Again the media quote ASH statements as if they are some kind of ministerial department.
Arnott spouts off like some kind of comissar.
I have seen some journalism that questions the logic of the bans.
However I have never seen any MSM column inches questioning the "quack science" behind the claims of SHS etc.
Because their own false science is their achilles heal.
And that false claim is the one they desperately try to ensure never gets questioned in the MSM.
How do they pull it off.
Proof the MSM is morally corrupt.
Climategate proved this.
No other answer is there.
I guess there are journalists who would love to write on these subjects.
The editors must be the link between big business - political interests and the control of what is oddly enough termed journalism nowadays.
I'm sure a lot of the rubbish that gets printed i.e., THS are merely column inches paid for in the same manner as advertising space.
However when I read comments from the public on these most doubt them.
It is a clear case of vested interest force feeding the public .
SPIN, I believe is the term.
Specky -
You're bang on, as usual !
But ain't it frustrating that we on this site have to devote SO much of our daily energy to convincing The Others of the validity of the Bleedin' Obvious ?
I'm sure Human Intelligence isn't SUPPOSED to be left on permanent Standby Mode - only to be switched on when occasion demands.
Is it ?
I think the other reason is that as smokers we are being demonised.
So lots of weaker minded people think we are some kind of legitimate target.
So no questions about any of the Junk science and Jouralism hurled our way.
Non smokers are starting to wake up a bit though.
I know this through conversations I have with others.
As now their turning on other lifestyle choices ,maybe they may start to see the attack on smokers for what it is.
The blueprint for the control of the proletareate.
Or just plain old bullying.
Oh my god.
Demonisation again.
Thank you BBC you really scraped the bottom of the distatefull barrell with this one.
This is insinuating smokers kill their children.
This woman is stark raving bonkers.
Or evil ,you decide.
I believe this statement has already been discredited too.
Arnotts statement.
"Smoking by fathers increases the risk of infant death as well. Our organisation supports increasing the price of tobacco because it will encourage smokers to consider quitting and so protect their children."
Specky -
Yes, I think the penny IS starting to drop with a great many - even the 'Dandy'-readers.
(I speak with the unforgiving prejudice of a 'Beano' man, I confess).
And WE have to do our bit to 'de-normalise' the notion of Control - not least by casually dropping the word into our conversation, when opportunity permits.
You've only to plant the seed (which may remain dormant for a while, admittedly).
On the other hand:
Good Ideas - like Bad Jokes - can go 'viral' with surprising speed sometimes.
PS:
Question to Resident 'Taking Liberties' Shrink:
WHY is it that EVERY time I hear/read the word ARNOTT, I feel the strange urge to construct a guillotine ?
A strangely un-English sentiment which I'm at a loss to explain.......................
“Such an increase would discourage children from buying cigarettes”. And there was me thinking that it is illegal for children to buy cigarettes.
The cynic in me is asking about the timing of this report. Why put this out now, are they trying to distract the public away from the super fast fund raising that has secured Nick Hogan’s release?
Yep !
Goerbals would be proud.
No, he wouldn't. He'd have been darn annoyed. One thing that Joseph Goebbels really did not like was people spelling his name wrong.
And Herr G was a smoker, too.
Albeit, off-camera................
I manage to miss all of Danny Baker by switching over to R4 for two hours.
ASH really are playing with fire suggesting increasing cigarette taxes. They are EUR 8.50 for 20 in Ireland and this report from the Irish times sounds like crack or heroin dealers in Brixton, Moss Side, The Bronx or South Central Los Angeles.
"CRIMINAL GANGS are using young people to sell smuggled tobacco door-to-door in housing estates around the State, an Oireachtas committee has heard. Benny Gilsenan, a shopkeeper in Dublin’s north inner city, said 12-14 year olds were being used to offload illegal cigarettes by criminals anxious to avoid detection by gardaí (police)."
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0218/1224264714081.html
Well I suppose it will be a boost to the black economy.
Gangsters have to buy thier flash clothes and cars from ligitimate businesses !
If smoking and drinking is so dastardly evil why does the State continue to pay benefits which can be used to pay for such things?
Or to put it another way, Why *aren't* ASH calling for cigarettes to be made unavailable to welfare claimants by paying them with food vouchers instead of money?
Currently Marlboro are approx £19.00 a carton of 200. (£1.90 a pack of 20). Take an Easyjet flight to Sofia and fill yer boots! Yay!
lf anyone needs advice on dealing with Customs just drop me a line globalcasinogaming@yahoo.com. You can bring as much back as you like regardless of what Customs try to imply. l've been doing it for years and never had any confiscated. Usually bring back a suitcase full.One of the few benefits of being in EU.
I buy mine EU .
I'm not paying the mad taxes here.
So how many adult smokers then ,funny old thing ,statistics.
Try 33 % ?.
Spartan -
That's good news indeed.
I assume that means that the airlines don't have their own 'policy' on tobacco amounts - unlike a certain coach company I could mention ?
When will the Government and the media realise that going to ASH for their expert opinion on smoking-related topics is like going to the BNP for their expert opinion on race issues?
Idiots.
Mr A -
Perhaps we tend to be too charitable in assuming that it's independent, unbiased advice that they want - rather than the simple confirmation of their own simple prejudices.
Other possible instances spring to mind........
Once a ban is passed, Moaner Industries will immediately open a chain of smoke-easies , secretly situated in disused warehouses, basements and lock-up garages. Forget your filter-tips… forget your roll-ups and the Woodbines. Here, we will employ scores of glamorous hostesses to encourage furtive smokers to buy them those wild and wicked Capstan Full-Strengths... (Cont'd)
@ martin V
as the resident shrink, I'd like to confirm your impulse is entirely understandable. Especially if the name is pronounced "Arnaulx"
Rose -
Many thanks: I should be able to sleep more easily now.
However, I believe I swore on the latest thread just now. I find this Primal Scream Therapy does much to relieve Arnott-induced tension.
For a while.
Lenko -
'Smoke-easies', eh ?
With the Bad Guys (Smokers) as the new Untouchables, that'd be a smashing piece of Historical Irony.
Big Al would've loved it.................