e., RJ Reynolds, Philip Morris) were also included in the sample��that those is, The Winston-Salem Journal and The Richmond Times, respectively. SLT news stories were also obtained from select news wire services, specifically the Associated Press (AP) (a national news wire service) and two health-focused wire services: Reuters Health eLine (a Reuters news service product based in the United States) and UPI Consumer Health Daily (a national health wire service from United Press International). Overall, 129 different news sources (i.e., 126 newspapers and 3 news wires) were reviewed for unique SLT-related articles. Articles were limited to those occurring between 2006 and 2010, a period coinciding with cigarette companies�� movement into the SLT market, the launch of new SLT products, and passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.
Articles were largely obtained through two electronic news databases: Access World News and Factiva. Relevant articles from 18 papers not available through these databases were obtained through paid searches of their individual Web site archives. Only stories representing original content (i.e., staff written or contributing articles, opinion articles) from each newspaper were included in the sample. Articles from the select wire services were identified directly from the AP, UPI Consumer Health Daily, and Reuters Health eLine archives and were only coded in the sample one time. If these same wire stories were found in the results of individual newspapers, they were not again included in the sample of articles from those papers.
As such, this study sample should be considered to be representative of unique stories from national and state newspapers rather than of all SLT stories found in them (which would include copies of all wire stories actually printed). Guidelines were developed to limit articles to those primarily about a SLT-related issue or that focused on a SLT issue in at least part of the article. To be included, articles identified using keywords (tobacco and smokeless, snuff, snus, chew, dip, spit, and/or dissolvable) needed to be at least four sentences long; contain at least one paragraph related to tobacco; and either include a SLT reference (e.g., snus) in the headline or in at least three different sentences to avoid articles simply mentioning SLT in passing.
Exceptions were made for letters to the editor because of their inherently shorter length, for example, letters only needed a SLT reference in two sentences. A coding guide was developed based on review of previous tobacco news studies and iterative review of SLT articles in the sample. Each article was coded for standard Dacomitinib variables such as date, source, and type (e.g., news/feature, opinion), and the presence of a SLT-related term in the headline. Additionally, each article was coded for the main topic or issue of the SLT content within the article (e.g.