title: "Tired of watching customers walk out the door because of the smoke": a content analysis of media coverage of voluntarily smokefree restaurants and bars.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  News media are key sources of information regarding tobacco issues, and help set the tobacco control policy agenda. We examined US news coverage of voluntarily smokefree restaurants and bars in locales without mandatory policies to understand how such initiatives are perceived.
  
  
  METHODS
  We searched three online media databases (Access World News, Lexis Nexis, and Proquest) for all news items, including opinion pieces, published from 1995 to 2011. We coded retrieved items quantitatively, analyzing the volume, type, provenance, prominence, and content of news coverage.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found 986 news items, most published in local newspapers. News items conveyed unambiguous support for voluntarily smokefree establishments, regardless of venue. Mandatory policies were also frequently mentioned, and portrayed positively or neutrally. Restaurant items were more likely to mention health-related benefits of going smokefree, with bar items more likely to mention business-related benefits.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Voluntary smokefree rules in bars and restaurants are regarded by news media as reasonable responses to health and business-based concerns about worker and customer exposure to secondhand smoke. As efforts continue to enact comprehensive smokefree policies to protect all in such venues, the media are likely to be supportive partners in the advocacy process, helping to generate public and policymaker support.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Suite 455, San Francisco, CA, 94118, USA. patricia.mcdaniel@ucsf.edu.
authors.forename: Patricia A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: McDaniel
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Suite 455, San Francisco, CA, 94118, USA. naphtali.offen@ucsf.edu.
authors.forename: Naphtali
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Offen
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Suite 455, San Francisco, CA, 94118, USA. valerie.yerger@ucsf.edu.
authors.forename: Valerie
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Yerger
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Suite 455, San Francisco, CA, 94118, USA. susan.forsyth@ucsf.edu.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Forsyth
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Suite 455, San Francisco, CA, 94118, USA. ruth.malone@ucsf.edu.
authors.forename: Ruth E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Malone
mesh_terms: D001290:Attitude; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D008402:Mass Media / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012147:Restaurants; D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution