A few weeks ago, the newspapers, television and radio stations were filled with coverage about a proposal by the Fort Worth City Council to ban the hiring of people who smoke. I was shocked to read that the Mayor of Fort Worth, Betsy Price, actually seemed to think that this was a good idea!

Something even more shocking to me was that fact that there has been almost zero coverage of the fact that the proposal was rejected without a vote! Evidently, saner voices prevailed. I have noticed that there appears to be a tendency in the media to go into a feeding frenzy every time a new and radical ban is announced and when they succeed, but there is very little or no coverage when smokers win. Why is that?

The only reason I found out about the result of what happened in Fort Worth was because I was curious and decided to do a Google Search. I could only find a handful of articles that actually spoke about the result such as this one:

Web Link

We smokers won a huge victory in Sunnyvale, just weeks after the draconian ban was approved here in Mountain View and yet none of the local papers that I read seemed to want to cover that story with as much zeal. As a matter of fact, I could not find any coverage at all! However, it is possible that I might have missed the story and would be extremely grateful to anyone who can provide a link.

I can only ask myself if this is on purpose or merely an oversight. If it is an oversight, then it seems to occur with regularity. People should be given the whole story.

Jim Neal

Old Mountain View