The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Second-Hand or First Rate?

5.23.03 @ 12:01AM

USEFUL CANADIAN INITIATIVE
Re: Joel Miller's Smoking With Al:

Q: What do you get when you compare the health of passive smokers with the health of a control group of other passive smokers, with no confirmation of the home life circumstances of either group for the latter 2/3s of the study, which was designed and funded by an industry with a long history of mendacity and billions of dollars in profits at stake, and the conclusions of which contradict the consistent findings of well-organized studies by credible, independent sources with nothing to gain or lose?

A: Results that The American Spectator thinks we should all take seriously. They can prove it, too -- anyone who disagrees will be called names, so it must be true, although in circles where participants are over the age of ten this is admittedly a proof with little validity .

All this study proves is that secondhand smoke exposure in the home is probably no worse than secondhand smoke exposure anywhere else. Someone who actually spent a bit of time reading the report and its criticisms, including the comments of the editorial board that approved it for publication, would know that. But perhaps your journalists are above stooping to such tawdry tactics as actually doing research to make sure they know what they are writing about.

Perhaps you could next assign Joel Miller to covering the one about the scientist who removed the legs of a flea trained to jump on command. He concluded that the creature had thus been rendered deaf because it no longer responded.
-- Sera Kirk
Vancouver, British Columbia

Joel Miller replies:
Sera Kirk's beef caught me a bit off guard. First, it's not like I said, "Smoking is good for you." It's not like I said, "Passive smoking is good for you." It's not like I even said, "There is no evidence it's bad for you." Here's what I did say: "the jury is still out on the dangers of secondhand smoke." The fact that the BMJ article was published at all is proof of that fact -- debate and discussion continues. Of course, at least one thorn of the thistle under Kirk's saddle is the fact that the BMJ article was published because the study was funded with tobacco dollars.

The argument in short: Tobacco funding = discredited findings. Richard Smith, editor of the British Medical Journal, a publication not exactly known for slavish adherence to the Tobacco Industry line, disagrees: "Of course the paper has flaws -- all papers do -- but it also has considerable strengths -- long follow up, large sample size, and more complete follow up than many such studies. … We judged this paper to be a useful contribution to an important debate. We may be wrong, as we are with many papers. That's science. But I remain convinced that it would have been wrong to reject the study simply because it was funded by the tobacco industry."

Smith says this as a man who resigned his professorship at Nottingham University because it accepted brass from British American Tobacco. He has no particular love for the Tobacco Industry, just valuable research, which he and others at BMJ considered this study to be. It was peer reviewed and passed muster.

What is ironic is that no one seems to raise eyebrows when studies funded by anti-tobacco interests come back with results -- surprise! -- against tobacco; there's little hand-wringing about bias there. With any subject suffused with politics, the method and results of the argument matter more than the truth of it. Genuine debate is not something valued by many regarding this issue, and Kirk provides the best proof. For Kirk to say that "anyone who disagrees will be called names" just poisons the well. It is a way of casting aspersions while looking honest and innocent -- a tactic that wouldn't withstand scrutiny even in a high-school public speaking course.

TOUGH SELL
Re: Bob Collins' Selling Conservatives:

I also used to wonder why Mr. Limbaugh's show seemed to feature second tier (and worse) advertisers. At the time I was a media sales representative and asked a media buyer employed by a major advertising agency for a major regional fast food chain why she did not purchase ad time on the Rush Limbaugh Show. Since much of his audience was mobile, had attractive income levels, and good prospects for purchasing fast food it seemed like a good fit. Her response was a crinkled up face and a sneering "I would not buy time on that show for any of my clients, ever!" She then went on a short but energetic tirade regarding her personal disdain for his politics and how she would have no part in supporting his views.

Remember, most media buyers at advertising agencies are young and female with recently minted liberal arts degrees. To the extent that they are political at all they do not tend to support policies favored by conservatives. In addition, Limbaugh tends to come across as loud, obnoxious, overbearing, and not a particularly good listener: these are not qualities that young liberal women find attractive. With the power to direct clients advertising dollars in a lot of different directions, it is very easy for these media buyers to simply spend their customer's money elsewhere and not have anybody question why.

Unless companies specifically request that their advertising dollars be spent on media outlets featuring a conservative point of view (and are willing to deal with the mainstream media backlash this would probably create) conservatives will continue to be subjected to pitches for Christy Lane CD's and "performance enhancing" vitamins.
-- Tom Anderson
International Used Truck Center
Charlotte, NC

I've listened to Rush for 13 years! I've bought a Select-Comfort mattress (best mattress my husband and I have ever had), and we just bought our 3rd Bose Wave Radio! We are totally satisfied with them ALL! Thanks for your advertising, Rush!
-- Sandra Longer

Re: "Selling Conservatives," don't worry. I use to have the same feelings about the companies sponsoring AM talk radio.

Letter to the Editor

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