Rendez-vous with Teresa Gardella
Rendez-vous with Teresa Gardella
By Philippe Boucher
Friday February 25, 2000
Rendez-vous with Teresa Gardella.
Thank you Teresa for accepting our ´ rendez-vous ª.
May I ask you to introduce yourself ?
My name is Theresa Gardella and I'm the Project Manager for the Advocacy Institute's Tobacco Control Project. The Advocacy Institute is dedicated to strengthening the capacity of public interest advocates - including tobacco control advocates -to influence public policy.
Although the Advocacy Institute stopped publishing the Daily News Bulletin on January 31, 2000, we will remain active in tobacco control, concentrating on our primary mission of developing the leadership capacity of the tobacco control movement and providing strategic analysis and guidance to tobacco control advocates.
First question : Can you remind us about the origin of the SCARCNet Daily News Bulletin. How was it organized and funded? Who were the writers along the years?
Although SCARCNet (Smoking Control Advocacy Resource Center Network) underwent several cosmetic and technical changes since its launch in 1990, the mission of the network remained unchanged: to bring the tobacco control community closer together, by providing advocates up-to-the-minute news and analysis, along with a place to strategize and share lessons learned.
When it was launched in 1989, SCARCNet was the first-ever electronic network for tobacco control. The network, funded by a grant from the National Cancer Institute, through its ASSIST (American Stop Smoking Intervention Study) program, and the American Cancer Society, was comprised of a Strategy Exchange, Daily News Bulletin, Action Alerts, a searchable database, and links to tobacco-related organizations and resources. Initially, the Daily News Bulletin was a "hook" to get people to log onto SCARCNet everyday (remember, very few people had web access, let alone logged on every day!).
Eventually, however, the Bulletin became the cornerstone of the network. The Daily News Bulletin (DNB), which consisted of news summaries and the Morning Briefing, gave busy advocates quick access to tobacco-related news, while the Morning Briefing helped advocates frame news stories, and to think strategically about media advocacy.
Over the years, the writers of the Daily News Bulletin included Advocacy Institute staff and a half dozen community-based advocates who collaborated with AI on a consulting basis.
2) How did you select the news? What sources did you use? How did you choose the topic for the Morning Briefing?
How did we select the news? The old-fashioned way! Every morning, beginning at 8:30, members of the tobacco team would scan the major newspapers and journals for tobacco-related news. The sources included the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Times, Los Angeles Times, Advertising Age, Ad Week, Tobacco Control, Tobacco Reporter (industry publication), Roll Call (Capitol Hill publication), and Congressional Quarterly. In addition, regional and local papers were accessed through an on-line search. These articles would then be summarized for that day's Bulletin. The purpose of the summaries was to impart tobacco-related information in a clear, and concise form, and to let advocates know how the press was covering the issue. Despite the temptation, we did not use the summaries to express our personal views or to editorialize. It was important to include the relevant information, and to let the article tell the story.
Once the stories were selected, the tobacco team, along with one of our community-based advocates, would meet to brainstorm, strategize, debate and eventually decide on the topic for the Morning Briefing. The Morning Briefing was a chance to highlight an advocacy-oriented article in the day's news and to discuss the implication of the story for advocates and suggest media advocacy ideas. In choosing a story for the Briefing, we asked ourselves, "How can activists use this information to further their tobacco control efforts?" and "What lessons can we learn from this story?" Often we would include suggested actions for communities, and/or ways to access the media for coverage of an issue.
3) Can you tell us about how many people received the Daily News Bulletin? Who were some of them and where were they from?
This is a good question, but a difficult one to answer. Most people received the DNB after it was downloaded off the web and passed around an office, or forwarded to listservs and/or posted on other websites. For example, Join Together, a Massachusetts-based community organization involved in the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, posted the DNB to an estimated 400-500 websites, and forwarded it to a listserv with 3,500 members. Other organizations and websites included the American Cancer Society, GLOBALink, ASSIST, Smokescreen, Centers for Disease Control, and the Center for Tobacco-Free Kids. Because we encouraged advocates to disseminate the DNB far and wide, it was difficult to know exactly how many people were receiving the news. If I had to guess, I would say between 7,000-10,000 a day.
4) Memory lane: what was the most memorable (best/worst) news that you remember?
Wow, this one is really difficult. Over the last three years, in the United States alone, we faced the possibility of major tobacco control legislation, the Master Settlement Agreement was signed, California passed a law banning smoking in bars, the Food and Drug Administration's authority to regulate tobacco was argued before the US Supreme Court, and so much more. It's difficult to think of the best or worst memories, but I can, however, tell you one of my funniest memories.
On April 1, 1994, April Fool's Day (a day celebrated with pranks and fabricated tales designed to fool the unwary), we decided to have a little fun with the DNB. We printed three fictional stories, "RJ Reynolds Hires Top Government Official," "Health Groups Downplay Philip Morris' Suppression of Study," and "New Clinton Plan Decreases Cigarette Tax." The government official referred to in the first fictional story was Michael Eriksen, the head of the Centers for Disease Control's Office on Smoking and Health and a highly regarded tobacco control advocate. The "story" reported that RJ Reynolds had hired Michael as a lobbyist. Although we thought it was funny, and Michael thought it was funny, several people didn't get the joke.
Despite the fact that "APRIL FOOLS!!" was written all over that day's Bulletin, Michael received several calls from irate advocates chastising him for betraying the movement. We had to print not one, but two retractions before the calls stopped. That was the last time we tried to have fun with the DNB!
5) I guess a lot of your readers were sad to see you end the service and are still worried about the future of tobacco control news management on line of which your daily digest was an important part.
How do you envision the future of tobacco control news management? What is the Advocacy Institute's strategy concerning the Internet? What happened to the people working on the Daily News Bulletin?
I think there is tremendous potential within the movement to create an integrated, coordinated, global communications infrastructure that serves the needs of a growing tobacco control movement. Before SCARCNet closed, Bob Jaffe from Washington DOC convened a meeting of national organizations and community-based advocates to discuss the idea of a global communications network. One suggestion that emerged from that meeting was to conduct a needs assessment of the movement's communication infrastructure. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has funded the needs assessment, and hopefully, the vision of an integrated and well-funded communications network will emerge.
Everyone who recently worked on the Daily News Bulletin is still with the Advocacy Institute (we couldn't afford to lose them!). Instead of working on the Daily News Bulletin, we will spend time strengthening our leadership development and capacity building programs for international and domestic tobacco control advocates.
Do you have anything else you would like to add?
When the Tobacco Control Project began in 1987, the primary mission was to provide technical assistance and strategic guidance to tobacco control advocates. In addition to SCARCNet, we produced numerous media and policy advocacy guides, along with legislative analysis and case studies. When the ASSIST contract expired in September 1999, however, we made a strategic decision not to seek alternative funding for the Daily News Bulletin, and to turn our full attention to developing the leadership capacity of international and U.S.-based tobacco control advocates. This was not an easy decision, but it was the right one. Over the years, the Advocacy Institute has developed a highly regarded methodology of leadership development for community-based policy advocates, and we have recently received funding to conduct both domestic and international tobacco control leadership programs.
We are currently working with the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization and Witold Zatonsky on a Central and Eastern European Tobacco Control Training being held in Warsaw, Poland in May. Immediately following the 11th World Conference in August, the Advocacy Institute will conduct a Leadership Fellows Program in Washington, DC with 15 tobacco control leaders from around the world. In addition, two Leadership Fellows Programs will be held this October in Washington, DC for US-based tobacco control advocates (now you see why we couldn't afford to lose anyone!).
I'd like to personally thank everyone who has contributed to SCARCNet and the Daily News Bulletin over the years, and to everyone who has written to tell us how valuable this resource has been to their tobacco control work.
Personally, I will miss being a part of such a useful and valuable service, but I am really looking forward to our new endeavors and collaborations.
And thank you, Philippe for giving me this opportunity to tell the "story" of SCARCNet and the role it has played in the tobacco control movement.
Thank you Teresa for taking the time to be with us today.
Philippe Boucher
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Philippe Boucher, cyberjournalist Web and Tobacco Control Consultant 9424 Windsong Loop Bainbridge Island, WA 98110 USA e-mail: boucher@globalink.org
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Prepared by Philippe Boucher mailto:IslandErsk@aol.com
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