Newspapers—including this one—often have very complicated relationships with other major institutions in the community. You can see/read that complexity in how we cover such folks as the sheriff’s office, or Wake Forest University or the School of the Arts. Quite often, we will have a “positive” story one day and a “negative” story the next and on and on. From our standpoint, it’s perfectly logical. It’s just the news. But it can cause an outsider to scratch his or her head.
Our most tangled relationship, I think, is with Reynolds Tobacco. At one point, members of the Gray family, which were intimately connected with RJR, owned the Journal, although that was quite a while ago. The Journal’s coverage of tobacco and tobacco-related issues has certainly changed through the years, particularly as the knowledge of the health risks associated with smoking have become clearer. We’re no longer a cheerleader, but I don’t think we are the village nag either. We just cover the news. Our coverage is complicated by the fact that RJR is a neighbor. Many of us know people who work there. It’s much easier for journalists who don’t live here to come to W-S and write about the faults of the cigarette business etc. It’s tougher when you run into the people you criticize at the supermarket or coaching Little League.
I got to thinking about this because of our story this weekend on the new cigarette lounge that Reynolds plans to open in downtown Winston-Salem. It’s going to be a stone’s throw from the Journal. For all I know, it could be our new hangout. But it’s a bizarre concept, a place designed to sell a particular brand of cigarettes. And it comes on the heel of the latest Surgeon General’s report, a tough document about the risks of second-hand smoke. In many places, such a development would be greeted with skepticism, and the health activists would be up in arms. The public-health community in W-S is certainly more vocal than in the past, but for now, the idea of a lounge that essentially promotes smoking is simply a downtown development story. That could change, but it hasn’t yet.
ON ANOTHER NOTE: The great BBQ hunt took me far afield this past weekend, to the Dillsboro Smokehouse in Western North Carolina. Mapquest puts it 190 miles plus to Lexington, but it’s closer in spirit, if not vinegar, so to speak. Worth a road trip? Maybe not. Worth a detour? Sure.
Your host is Ken Otterbourg, the managing editor at the Winston-Salem Journal. It's a forum to discuss the media, from
Good article,
I actually think the lounge is less of a smoking promoter and more of a haven for the smokers out there. Having grown up in Europe, I was surrounded by family and friends that smoked. My move to California as a teenager swung me to the opposite end of the smoking spectrum, as there is hardly a square mile left in the state where smoking is allowed. Now in Winston Salem I find myself in an interesting mix of smokers and non-smokers - actually, primarily non-smokers in a historically renowned tobacco promoting society.
My friend works on the RJR tobacco lounge. I think it’s less a matter of smoking vs. non-smoking as it is a factor in the region’s dwindling economy. As web developer, I have worked on projects for HanesBrands (Sara Lee), and am all too familiar with friends fearing for their jobs. I think with all the change that is in the air we need to support the local businesses while we still have them.
Alex
ps. I’m curiously keeping up to date with HanesBrands spinoff news, in case anyone is interested in following my findings: HanesBrands
I would think that a journalist should maintain objectivity no matter what the community. You are not attacking individuals in your community when reporting on tobacco companies. Rather you are, or should be, reporting on a product that produces more disease and death than anything else!
I was recently in W-S and my taxi driver told me that the town would not be what it was if it not for RJ Reynolds. If the town’s economics reflect that of the nation’s, W-S is paying more in direct and indirect medical costs resulting from tobacco products than it could ever realize in profits form tobacco.
Please don’t allow the fact that RJ Reynolds is a neighbor prevent you from reporting the facts. You will be doing W-S a tremendous favor by not only reporting on the very real dangers of smoking and second hand smoke but on the importance of quitting!
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