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NEW...HOT OFF THE PRESS Special two-fer this morning. First, this is the first issue of a new publication we�re launching focusing on the growing movement to ban advertising for politically incorrect industries and products. As you�ll see in this issue of �Ad Finitum,� there are efforts underway to ban food advertisements on kids� TV, as well as a renewed push to ban beer commercials. (You know, those Budweiser frogs are just so cute that 4-year-olds are rushing out to pick up a six-pack and party in the playpen!) Plus, there�s an all-new Muth�s Truths posted on our News & Views EXTRA page this morning. What do the Ten Commandments, Zell Miller and gays have in common with cops and Coors beer? A very healthy trend in public policy discussions which each of you should be encouraging EVERY chance you get. Read all about it at: http://www.chuckmuth.com/newsandviews/nv.cfm Now on with the show... PROHIBITIONISTS STILL AT IT �Richardson (Texas) resident Howard Lydick, president of the National Temperance and Prohibition Council, has been active in the fight to restrict alcohol since 1946, when he unsuccessfully tried to stop Kansas from repealing prohibition,� reports Allen Houston in the Allen American. �He said pastors are worn out by the onslaught of alcohol advertising on television and the way drinking has become increasingly accepted in society. Lydick said prohibition works and he would like to see Texas and the United States ban the sale of alcohol completely.� Lydick needs to drink two martinis and call us in the morning. DODGEBALL-AND-BEER HYSTERIA �An alcohol policy advocacy group complained yesterday that the new film �Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story� exposes too many teenagers to beer advertising, through placements of packaging and signs for the Budweiser and Bud Light brands sold by the Anheuser-Busch division of the Anheuser-Busch Companies,� reports the New York Times. �The advocacy group, the Marin Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Other Drug Problems cited �Dodgeball,� which was the No. 1 film last week in its first week, as an example of aggressive beer marketing to teenagers through placements in films rated PG-13.� These people need to get a life. AD BAN DOWN UNDER The Labor Party in Australia is pushing hard for a ban on �junk food� advertising on television, leading Prime Minister John Howard to remark, �There is nothing wrong with eating McDonald's, it is how much McDonald's you eat that is the problem." This is an apparent reference to filmmaker Morgan Spurlock who gained 25 pounds after eating like a pig at McDonald�s three times a day, every day, for 30 days. Duh. "If you apply the philosophy of the Labor Party, you would ban altogether advertisements for alcohol, analgesics and Panadol,� Howard said on the floor of the Australian House of Representatives. "Where does it end? Do you put a ban on wine? Do you put a ban on alcohol? Coffee, too, because that has caffeine in it. . . . Once you start going down this path, you can always mount an argument for going further." A slippery slope, indeed. WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? A June 23 editorial in the Pasadena (CA) Star News claimed that, �Children nationwide are 400 times more likely to see TV advertising encouraging alcohol consumption than TV advertising discouraging underage drinking.� The editorial cited an unnamed study purporting to show that alcohol companies spent a lot more money advertising the sale of their products on television than they did discouraging underage drinking. Duh. The folks over at the Star News need to get a clue. The objective of advertising is to SELL a product, not discourage the sale of a product. Frankly, the job of teaching kids about alcohol use is the job of PARENTS, not beer companies. If do-gooders and prohibitionists want to run public service commercials doing the parents� job of discouraging underage drinking...fine. But to suggest this is a responsibility of the manufacturer defies common sense...not to mention freedom of speech. That freedom includes not only the right to speak...but the right NOT to speak. Nevertheless, the Star News has called for a boycott of any alcoholic beverage company that, in their opinion, has �shown itself to care nothing for their children's welfare.� Oh, please. I�m going to boycott a beer company which brews a beer I like because it refuses to run ads which discourage me from buying my favorite beer? I don�t think so. These beer ad banners are close to insane in what passes for their �logic.� LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON Do you remember the name David Boies?� He was that obnoxious lawyer who kept filing appeal after appeal after appeal down in Florida trying to overturn the 2000 presidential election results and install the clinically insane Al Gore into the Oval Office.� His case had no merit.� He lost.� But he raked in a ton of cash for his efforts. Well, as they say, the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree. Keep an eye on the Son of Boies.� Young David the Third is leading the new charge to cha-ching the bank accounts of plaintiff�s lawyers off the back of a successful American industry.� This junior ambulance-chaser is busy filing lawsuits against beer and liquor companies across the fruited plain charging that advertisements for their products are the cause of underage drinking in the country. Boies claims that some parents give their underaged kids money, which those kids then use to illegally purchase alcohol after seeing a TV commercial, and who then drink and drive and have an auto accident. Therefore, according to the lawsuits, the families of the crash victims (not to mention Boies) should be entitled to a massive payday...from the beer and liquor companies. Huh? Shouldn�t the person behind the wheel be responsible for their own actions? Or maybe the parents of the kids who weren�t keeping a better eye on their offspring? Not if your motive is to cash in big rather than solve the underage drinking problem. And suing deep-pocketed manufacturers who have done nothing wrong or illegal is the quickest way to pay for that new Lexus and weekend in Vegas, baby! The most worst part of all this is that Boies doesn't really care if he wins in court...and probably isn�t all that bothered by kids who break the law.� He just hopes to blackmail companies into paying him to make his lawsuits disappear without the cases ever making it to court. Let�s hope these companies--who not only contribute millions annually to help fight underage drinking (when they really don't have to, mind you), but are simply following the rules and legally advertising their products--fight back.� Sooner or later somebody has GOT to do something to stop this lawsuit cancer running rampant through society which attempts to fix blame, not on those actually responsible, but those with the biggest bank account. BANNING FOOD ADS ON TV Dale Kunkel, a University of California at Santa Barbara communications professor, and Yale obesity expert Kelly Brownell are two of the folks leading the charge for a government ban on television food ads aimed at kids, maintaining the commercials are responsible for the growing weight problems of so many American youth. Horse-hockey, says Todd Zywicki of the Federal Trade Commission. In a recent panel discussion on the subject, columnist Jacob Sullom writes that Mr. Zywicki blew this silly notion out of the water by asking the audience �to imagine a fat child who watches 6 hours of Nickelodeon a day. Would you expect him to get thinner if his parents switched him to 6 hours of commercial-free PBS programming?� Touche. As Sollum notes, it�s sitting around watching TV all day without exercise which will pack the pounds on you, not watching food commercials. Additionally, as Sollum points out, �If parents don't have the wherewithal to say no when their kids ask for something they saw on TV, their problems go far beyond the risk of chubby offspring.� What a novel concept: Expecting parents to take responsibility for their kids instead of blaming someone else. Fat chance that it�ll catch on, though. FTC SEZ: AD BANS NOT THE ANSWERS �The alarming increase in obesity is a complex public health issue that demands effective response by parents, industry, physicians, consumer advocates and government. One idea suggested is to ban television commercials for �junk food� directed at kids. This chestnut first surfaced at the Federal Trade Commission in the late 1970s. It didn't go anywhere then -- and it shouldn't go anywhere now. In fact, the FTC's experience with proposals like this one shows that advertising bans are like the �quick-fix� weight-loss products we challenge: appealing on the surface, but ultimately useless. �Banning junk food ads on kids' programming is impractical, ineffective and illegal. It's impractical because, although kids see many food ads on children's programming, most ads they see air on programs that are not directed to them. The FTC's 1978 proposal to ban advertising on programs for which young children comprised at least 30% of the audience would have affected only one program -- the now iconic �Captain Kangaroo.� A ban would be ineffective because there is no reason to think that the ads kids see make them obese. Although American children see thousands of food ads each year, they have done so for decades -- since long before the dramatic upswing in obesity� �Finally, a ban would be illegal. . . . Our First Amendment requires government to demonstrate that restrictions on truthful, non-misleading commercial speech for legal products meaningfully advance a compelling interest. Because a children's advertising ban would be ineffective, it would fall far short of that test. �Attacking food advertising may offer the illusion of progress in the fight against childhood obesity. But in the end Americans must eat less and exercise more.� - Timothy Muris, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Wall Street Journal, 6/25/04 ********************************************* Ad Finitum is published by Citizen Outreach and edited by Chuck Muth. For more information, please visit www.citizenoutreach.com.
