Court Asks Tobacco Firms, Dept. of Justice  Who 'Apology Ads' Will Reach

NNPA Chairman, Cloves Campbell

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Target Market News

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The U.S. District Court in Washington, DC has asked that all of the parties in the long standing lawsuit brought against the tobacco industry to provide further comments on how the proposed media plan would reach those impacted by smoking advertising.

At last week's status conference in the case of the United States v. Phillip Morris, et al, Judge Gladys Kessler said she was concerned about whether the media plan the court has approved will reach "everyone it needs to reach." The media plan is for the placement of ads that will say tobacco companies misled the public about the dangers of smoking cigarettes.

It was disclosed by Target Market News on Jan. 13 that there were no Black media outlets among the 34 newspapers and three television networks approved to ultimately carry the ads. Subsequently the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) asked the court to include Black-owned media in the plan for "corrective ads" that the tobacco companies would be mandated to buy.

Judge Kessler has invited NNPA and NABOB to join the plaintiffs and defendants in submitting comments on those segments of the population that the current media plan will - and will not - reach. Those comments are to be filed by Feb. 18.

"The health of the African American community has suffered disproportionately from the advertising campaigns of the tobacco companies," said NABOB Executive Director Jim Winston in a statement. "Yet, now that the tobacco companies are being required to educate the public about the harm that tobacco products have caused, the companies and the [Dept. of Justice] have no plan to direct any educational advertising to our communities."

Lawyers representing defendants Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Lorillard Inc. filed a brief responding to the filing by NNPA and NABOB, saying they oppose any third party request to change the terms of the agreement because "this request comes too late."

The media plan was not widely reported on when originally filed in 2006, and only came to light this month when the actual language and design of the ads to be placed was agreed upon. The ads will not run until the tobacco companies have concluded all of their appeals. Media executives have told Target Market News that the current media advertising plan is valued at $30 - 45 million.

"The parties have been negotiating the implementation terms of the corrective communications remedy for over a year," argued the tobacco companies in a court filing. "It is simply too late in the day to put a new slate of newspapers before the Court and the parties."

Tobacco lawyers acknowledged that since being filed seven years ago, there are general market newspapers in the plan that have gone out of business. "We have no objection to considering as replacements newspapers that are on the list proposed by NNPA and NABOB."

The NAACP also filed a request with U.S. District Court, asking that it "require Defendants to use NABOB and NNPA member organizations to fulfill its remedial order."

"The remedial order advertising list allows the Defendant to walk away from the community that it directly targeted African-American communities," said the NAACP filing. "As a result, the Defendants will have directly disseminated misinformation to the African American community without the responsibility of returning to correct their errors."

The original media plan also does not include the placement of ads on any radio stations, and it excluded Fox as a major television network. Since the disclosure that there are no Black media outlets listed, Fox Broadcasting filed its own request that it be included.

Feb. 2, 2014

Blackonomics

Accelerating Affluence and Perpetuating Poverty
By  James Clingman         

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The role we play in our own economic demise is mind-boggling.  First of all, our priorities are screwed up.  We place more emphasis on some of the most meaningless issues and aspects of life.  We use much of our time talking about the housewives, the preachers, the husbands, the Grammys, the fashions, and yes, politics, and fail to do what it takes to really empower ourselves.  It is a case where the poorest in this society are doing everything they can to further enrich the affluent.

Of course, it is by design and there has to be a willing and, as Amos Wilson said, “stupid” consumer class to maintain our capitalistic system.  But this is not a diatribe against rich people; as a matter of fact, I wish we had more rich people rising from the ranks of the poor.  The intent of this article is to illustrate our participation in keeping ourselves in the very place we complain about being.

The affluent are piling up more cash than they could spend in a three lifetimes, and they never get distracted from that mission.  They do not succumb to being dumbed down by stupid, time-wasting, no-redeeming-value, TV shows.  They are not swooning over politics; they know it’s nothing but a game and a means for them to get even richer. Yes, some of them are even willing to break the law, sacrifice their morality, and do unethical things to get what they want; but I am certainly not suggesting we go that far.

I am suggesting that we stop being the fodder for our economic system, at least not to extent we are now.  I am suggesting that we take ourselves more seriously and start playing to win.  Aside from the obvious problems for our children, this is also a problem for the country.  The rich save and the poor spend, which heightens the importance of income inequality.  If the vast majority of the money in the system always finds its way to the top 1 percent, thereby, not very likely to be spent, then what happens to consumption, which comprises two-thirds of our GDP?

It’s one thing to talk about income and wealth disparities, but it’s an entirely different thing to get down to the business of doing something about it.  We can, as Red said in Shawshank Redemption, “Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’” and that begins by studying and learning how business is done in this country.  Find out what your individual role is and what our collective role is, and then change the paradigm.

Stop buying so much stuff that others make; start buying more of what we make.  Stop complaining about others starting businesses in our neighborhoods; start our own.  Slow down spending; increase saving.  Use Black financial planners, tax preparers, accountants, lawyers, and yes, sports agents, start building a relationship with a bank, a Black bank if possible, and stop falling for those celebrity prepaid debit card rip-offs.

I understand that some folks cannot get checking accounts, which causes some of them to fall prey to high profile celebrities who endorse cards that charge usury fees.  But regardless of your situation, you should try to build a relationship with a bank or credit union, and stop paying outrageous fees to spend your own money?

Those cards, backed by the likes of Russell Simmons, Magic Johnson, Lil’ Wayne, just to name a few, only increase their affluence and perpetuate your poverty.  They charge loading fees, monthly fees, ATM fees, and even “inactivity” fees, of which the so-called “Rush Card” has the highest.  Check them out for yourself, and stop being clowned by these guys and their backers.  If you must use a prepaid card, find the cheapest one; you don’t need a celebrity’s face on it or an endorsement by a celebrity for it to work for you.

Finally, in his SOTUS the President said no one should to have to raise a family in poverty, and therefore we need to raise the minimum wage to $10.10.  Poverty level for a four-person household is $23,850; at $10.10 per hour and with one person working, that household would earn $21,008. Duh! Don’t get emotionally hyped by mere words; do some research and know the facts.  Accounting for inflation and productivity, some reports indicate the minimum wage should be even higher, and unless it is tied to inflation, with raises every year, “10-10” will go down in history as just another cute political phrase.

Sure, we should raise wages for the lower tier of workers, but that in and of itself will not make a dent in the “inequality gap” now being discussed.  As stated earlier, poor people spend; rich people save.  Thus, the cycle continues: Accelerating Affluence and Perpetuating Poverty.

Feb. 2, 2014

The Next Generation
By William Spriggs

Feb. 1, 2014

Timeless Lessons
By Dr. E. Faye Williams

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Most people my age can’t forget many admonishments from elders, “Child, you’d better learn your lessons.”  That reminder was rooted in the belief that education was the gateway to success. It served to reinforce the understanding that, in life, circumstances are introduced to guide us to specific purposes.  Those personal lessons, along with lessons learned from books, shaped our appreciation of OUR African-American History.

The beauty of our rich culture and history is that it’s a shared experience that’s survived tests heretofore unrivaled in length or brutality.  For those willing to listen and learn, the character and strength of our history have become the foundation of the values we use to chart our path to the future.  African American History Month provides an opportunity to reaffirm and rededicate ourselves to the lessons of OUR history and plan for OUR future.

The late Dr. Carter G. Woodson, Father of Negro History, was prophetic in his admonitions. He clearly understood the relationship between knowledge, self-esteem and personal accomplishment.  He offered numerous observations that serve as timeless lessons that are as important for the survival of OUR race now as they were when first uttered.

His thinking about “Negro History” is clearly summarized in his statement, “If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.”  He added, “Those who have no record of what their forbearers have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.”

Many have neglected learning the lessons of our history and fulfilling our duty to pass this information on to our youth.  One of my greatest hopes is that lines of us will form outside the Museum of African American History and Culture (to open in 2015) in lengths greater than those routinely found outside the (Jewish) Holocaust Museum.

It’s time for us to demand recognition of the holocaust associated with our history, and acknowledge and honor the challenges we’ve overcome.  That clarifies the meaning of Dr. King’s 1963 demand for America to “cash the check” it owes us.

Dr. Woodson gave us the keys to gaining self-autonomy and control when he said, “If the Negro in the ghetto must eternally be fed by the hand that pushes him into the ghetto, he will never become strong enough to get out of the ghetto.”  And, “When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.”  Until we heed these warnings, we’ll experience a collective floundering, remaining subject to negative influences –external and internal.

As an educator, he understood the impact of negative information on the mind and performance. He was speaking of our mis-education when he said, “This crusade is much more important than the anti-lynching movement, because there would be no lynching if it did not start in the schoolroom. The thought of the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies…to handicap a student by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless is the worst sort of lynching.”

Many of us forgot the lessons of our history, and we’ve not been well served by the lapse. We’ve allowed others to create images of our humanity and more commonly, their perception of our inhumanity. Claims of “keeping it real,” many of our own have recreated an array of negative images with a result as damaging as those of the minstrel era.

Thinking of OUR possibilities and liabilities, I remember the George Santayana truism: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Dr. E. Faye Williams is Chair of the National Congress of Black Women, Inc.