Good Information, Bad Delivery

Yesterday the law banning flavored cigarettes officially went into effect. The law was passed in the hopes that by banning flavored cigarettes, a product used mainly by teenagers, fewer teens would become addicted to smoking. In Gardiner Harris's article "Flavors Banned From Cigarettes to Deter Youths" (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/health/policy/23fda.html?ref=todayspaper) Harris explains why the FDA decided a ban on flavored cigarettes is necessary and where the FDA got the power to regulate tobacco products. In addition, he covers details missing from the legislation and the confusion that has arisen as a result. On top of that, he then delves into the effect of the ban on stores that sell cigarettes. All this, in an article that can't be more than 1,000 words.

Of course one of the difficulties that comes with reporting is fitting all the information into the small square of column space alloted for you in tomorrows paper. I imagine most (good) reporters do pages and pages of research before they write what ends up being a very short article, so deciding what information stays and what has to go is a very onerous task. However, while Harris has conducted plenty of research and gathered a plethora of information, his article overloads the reader with too many different angles on the same issue. As a result parts of his article seem choppy and even a little random. For example, in the last two paragraphs Harris briefly mentions Brian Mullholland, the general manager of Georgetown Tobacco, and how he has been educating consumers of flavored cigarettes on what to switch to. The rest of the article has no mention of the struggle of either the consumer or managers of stores that sell tobacco and instead focuses on the confusion between the agency and tobacco companies regarding what qualifies as a cigarette.

Overall, while this article gives the reader a lot of relevant information concerning the ban on flavored cigarettes, it seems choppy and often randomly pieced together.