When morals and budgets collide
Similar to contemporary concerns over taking advertising from oil and gas companies, critics allege that publishers have an obligation not to promote products that harm consumers.
Likewise, following the vital role publishers played in combating Covid-19, public health advocates have pointed to the hypocrisy of those same publishers now promoting tobacco companies, said Schillo. Cigarettes claim the lives of 480,000 Americans annually, according to the CDC.
According to Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University who has tracked the trend, the resurgence of tobacco advertising is due to several trends. In 2017, tobacco companies embarked on an advertising blitz to promote their new crop of smokeless products and stave off regulation, according to Schillo.
The ads themselves have also become more palatable to publishers, according to Kennedy. By running as corporate advocacy initiatives or native placements, the campaigns allow tobacco companies to advertise themselves without actively promoting a product.
Critically, the ad spend has also materialized during a historically challenging era for digital media. The resulting financial pressure likely played a role, according to Kennedy, in convincing publishers to embrace as a partner an industry that it once considered a pariah.
“At the time that cigarette advertising disappeared, the newspaper business was a lot healthier—today they are pretty loathe to turn down advertising,” Kennedy said. “I do think sponsored ads about vaping are less harmful than cigarette ads, but I just don’t think that news outlets ought to be getting into bed with the tobacco industry.”
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