Media Council upholds tobacco opinion piece complaint

The Media Council says an article published in The Press should have declared that the writer of an opinion piece opposing tobacco control worked for an organisation that has tobacco companies among its supporters.

The Press published an opinion piece headed Nipping tobacco prohibition in the bud on December 9, 2023. It was written by Dr Eric Crampton, chief economist of the New Zealand Initiative, and the article was subsequently shared across most of Stuff’s daily papers.

The article said prohibition in the United States had a terrible cost in terms of crime, gang warfare and a black market.

It said: “In 2022, the Labour government legislated that tobacco prohibition would take effect from April 1, 2025.”

Tobacco prohibition in New Zealand would exempt cigarettes containing trivial amounts of nicotine, the article said, but the harm was in the by-products of combustion, not nicotine.

Nathaniel Herz-Edinger said the use of the term “prohibition” was inaccurate, creating the impression that after April 1, 2025, no New Zealanders would be able to buy tobacco, just as Americans were unable to buy alcohol.

He also disputed the claim that the harm in cigarettes came from products of combustion rather than nicotine.

The Media Council did not uphold either of these aspects of the complaint, as the story said cigarettes containing a trivial amount of nicotine could still be sold and this would alert the reader to the fact that any “prohibition” would not be total.

This statement about nicotine is debatable, according to the information supplied to the council, but it seems unwise to make such a definitive statement when it is widely accepted that nicotine addiction leads to damage.

But neither of these factual matters were clearly inaccurate in an opinion piece which readers would realise was pushing one side of the tobacco control argument.

However, the council agreed with Herz-Edinger that the fact the New Zealand Initiative, which employs the writer, had tobacco companies among its funders should have been declared.

It acknowledges Crampton’s statement that he would have written the same thing regardless of who the organisation’s members were.

But the council found such a clear potential conflict of interest should have been declared so readers were fully informed about the writer’s connections.

Stuff, The Press’ parent company, initially denied the need to declare the conflict of interest, but reconsidered its position two months later and added a rider declaring the conflict of interest and said it would do so as a matter of policy in the future.

The Media Council commends Stuff for reconsidering its policy but believes the two months it took to annotate the story was too long, given the fact that it was such a clear conflict of interest.

The complaint was upheld under Principle (10) Conflicts of Interest.

The full Media Council ruling can be found online at: www.mediacouncil.org.nz/rulings/nathaniel-herz-edinger-against-thepress/