The media often frames tobacco in a way that feels stuck in the 1990s—ignoring new science and harm reduction tools like e-cigarettes, snus, and nicotine pouches.
In this interview, journalist Jacob Grier explains why coverage of smoking and tobacco policy is often outdated, how this impacts public perception, and why it’s time to rethink the conversation around nicotine.
Transcription:
00:09 - 00:20
[Joanna Junak]
Jacob, you work as a journalist covering tobacco policy. So what do you think about how media covers smoking and tobacco policy?
00:20 - 01:22
[Jacob Grier]
It was quite disappointing is the way I would describe it. I think the media has not caught up to the current state of tobacco harm reduction and the science around tobacco. I think they have a very 1990s mindset and before, where there's a very simple story about tobacco, where smoking was extremely bad, tobacco companies were very dishonest. That was pretty much all you needed to know and you had a very simple story. It's obviously much more complicated now with these many lower risk products, such as e-cigarettes, and snooze, and nicotine pouches, which dramatically changed the story, and a lot of the media hasn't caught up to that yet. I would also say that the media attempts to look for new stories, so they can be fairly alarmist, and so they pay much more attention to, say, an ultimately very small risk that might be associated with vaping or some other product, while basically ignoring the fact that there are still seven million people dying every year from smoking. because that fades into the background. And so I think they've really failed to address the more important issue here.
01:23 - 01:31
[Joanna Junak]
What strategies can be used to address misinformation or negative messaging about THR in the media?
01:31 - 02:17
[Jacob Grier]
It can be a challenge. I would say one of the important things to do is to personalize the story. Like I said, a lot of people in the press tend to forget that smokers exist. So if we can bring people in who have actual experience, who maybe smoke or even better yet, used to smoke and now don't because they've taken up other products, that can be very effective. And I would also say to anyone who's trying to influence press coverage, get to know your beat reporters. Sometimes a reporter will only write on this once and then they're done, but a lot of the time these are journalists who are getting to know the beat, getting to know who's on it. And so reach out to them and be a contact who's available to them and who they want to talk to, which means be nice and be respectful so that they will want to pick up the phone or send you an email and talk.
02:18 - 02:24
[Joanna Junak]
opinion, what role do the media play in educating the public about harm reduction?
02:25 - 03:05
[Jacob Grier]
Well, right now, I'd say objectively, the role they're playing is miseducating the public. We have pretty clear evidence looking at survey data from public perceptions of things like e-cigarettes before and after the so-called e-valley epidemic from 2019 and 2020. It was a complicated story. We know that's not actually anything to do with nicotine. But the outcome of that is that the news coverage actually misinformed the public. So more people think that vaping is more dangerous than smoking than did before. So the news coverage is directly misinforming the public. So what I would hope to see is that the news coverage would get back to better portraying the relative risk of different products.
03:06 - 03:13
[Joanna Junak]
And what are the biggest barriers to communicating about tobacco harm reduction around the world?
03:13 - 03:59
[Jacob Grier]
Yeah, well, like I said before, I think one challenge we have is that it's just a more complicated story than it used to be. You know, it's very easy to say smoking bad, tobacco companies bad, public health good. And now we do have a more complicated landscape and it's hard to get that story across. It's hard to get people to think at a population level and show them surveys and studies. I would also say there's just a lot of misinformation and prejudice against nicotine. It's unusual that you have a drug where the drug's effects on the users is so determined by what form they get it in. That's a really unique situation. And so it's a challenge to get people to understand that nicotine needs to be evaluated separate from combusted tobacco. And that's an uphill battle we'll have to fight.
03:59 - 04:01
[Joanna Junak]
Thank you so much.
04:01 - 04:02
[Jacob Grier]
Thanks for having me here.