Newspaper coverage of Oklahoma's successful tobacco excise tax increase

News organizations are an important and influential part of the public and policymakers' view of public health policy. This influence comes both from the news organizations choice of issues and by the nature and extent of the chosen issues. An understanding of this influence is particularly important when dealing with controversial and/or complex public health policies. This paper will examine the coverage of one such policy - the Oklahoma tobacco excise tax increase. The increase was placed on the ballot by the legislative referendum and approved by voters in November 2004. The issue was complicated throughout the process by the debate and adoption of new tobacco compacts with tribal nations. A subscription to a clipping service provides articles from most newspapers in the state with a focus on tobacco. These articles are catalogued in a database. All articles coded as tax or price increase were included in this analysis. A content analysis was conducted to determine frame for or against the increase and the presence of key messages. To examine the influence of the tribal issues articles focusing on Indian smoke shops or development of tribal compacts were also examined.