Reality Check NY
Reality Check is a youth-led movement in New York State with the goal of exposing the manipulative advertising practices of the tobacco industry. Thousands of teens across the state participate in Reality Check and work towards the organization's stated purpose of alerting other teens about their belief that the tobacco industry specifically markets to minors. Their main goals are to deglamorize tobacco use among teens and to decrease tobacco advertising which they believe targets kids.
Reality Check has been involved in combating depictions of smoking in movies, point of purchase advertisements, and tobacco advertising found in the school setting. Reality Check's main focus is currently on their belief that the tobacco industry targets teens through advertising, sponsorship and promotion of their product through any forms of media or public events.
It is important to note that Reality Check is not against smokers themselves, but against the industry and its advertising practices. It is also commonly misconceived that the movement is anti-drugs; although it is certainly not pro-drugs, it takes no official stand on the issue and deals only with tobacco.
History
Reality Check was established in 2000 by the New York State Department of Health as the state's first anti-tobacco movement that uses the state's youth to promote its message, calling itself "youth-led". In June of 2000, 150 teens from across the state gathered in central New York and worked to name, shape, form, and design what would become a state health department-run program called Reality Check. Since its inception, Reality Check has gained a following of several thousand teenagers across New York State. There are active and defunct chapters in all of the state's 62 counties.
Reality Check's Key Message
According to Reality Check, since the tobacco industry's products are inherently deadly, it needs a generation of new customers to replace the ones dying of tobacco-related illnesses ("replacement smokers"). As a result, they believe, the tobacco industry actively targets teens with various forms of advertising. According to the Master Settlement Agreement of 1998, an agreement several of the largest tobacco companies made with 46 of the 50 United States, the tobacco industry can no longer target any children or teenagers and is prohibited from doing so by law. According to Reality Check, the tobacco industry has not honored this agreement, and continues to actively target youth. Several statewide initiatives have been formed, with this stance as their foundation.
Ways in Which the Tobacco Industry Targets Teens
Reality Check believes the tobacco industry targets teens in a plethora of different ways. Some that they believe are the most prevalent are:
- Point of Purchase Advertising Advertising placed at the location of businesses which sell tobacco products are considered to be "Point of Purchase" (POP) ads. Such ads include those found outside gas stations in the form of signs often stuck in the lawn, or affixed to an elevated surface such as a lamp post or wall. POP advertisements can also be found within businesses. Often, representatives from various tobacco companies that have their advertisements placed in a store will direct where the advertisements are to be placed on a monthly basis. Reality Check claims that said advertisements have been deliberately placed low to the ground, and near candy and other snacks to attract the attention of children.
- Magazine Advertising The tobacco industry has also been known to market their product heavily in various periodicals. It is Reality Check's belief that such advertisements should not be allowed in school libraries, or in magazines with a high percentage of youth readership. Recently Reality Check worked with NY State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and the National Association of Attorneys General to adopt policies with Time, Newsweek, People, Sports Illustrated, and the tobacco industries to remove all tobacco advertising in copies of these magazines available in school libraries. In the past, it has also passed down initiatives to its county- and school-level chapters to check these magazines' advertisements to make sure these policies are being upheld.
Criticisms of Reality Check
Marketing style
Reality Check has come under fire by some, both smokers and non-smokers, for a number of their practices. Some believe that their events focus on giving away free merchandise, and attract far too many teens interested in socializing rather than in the cause itself. These methods have been criticized for being very similar to the marketing practices of the tobacco companies that they decry as manipulative, particularly in their marketing to teens. Reality Check itself feels that their brand of marketing is vastly different than that of the tobacco companies, and that the causes are too different to compare marketing styles. This criticism has nonetheless led to some charges of hypocrisy toward the movement, particularly what some see as the inherent contradiction between their slogan "We won't be bought" and their focus on giving away free merchandise to attract teens.
Censorship
Reality Check's campaigns against smoking in movies, much like those of organizations such as Smoke Free Movies, are seen by some to be a form of censorship, and stifling towards filmmakers; some also suggest that smoking in movies is not necessarily a form of product placement. Smoke Free Movies themselves has responded to such criticism in ads.
Teen Led
Reality Check is said to be a teen led movement supported by adults by adults who organize and run Reality Check. Their major claim is that youth leadership takes place at school- or county-level positions of authority. Although recent changes to the organization, including an apparent shift from the slogan "We won't be bought" to "Lead the revolution", the movement's status as "teen led" has come under fire primarily by the teens who are 'leading' it. According to adult coordinators, facilitators, and officials within New York State's Bureau of Tobacco Control, the changes in the movement have primarily involved a more consistent stream of input and adult guidance. However, they still maintain that Reality check is in fact still teen led despite the vast majority of its programming having been created by adults. Adults working for the Reality Check program claim this is due to the fact that many teens fall out of involvement with Reality Check after they graduate high school. All in all, the issue of teen leadership within Reality Check is hotly debated by many involved.