To you and me, it's a funny beer ad. To the New York Times, it's cause for a 25-paragraph story slamming Big Beer.
The New York Times's Melanie Warner penned a two-column article today on the complaints of several liberal "advocacy" groups about a Bud Light commercial featuring men on the roof enjoying a beer while pretending to do their wives a favor.
Warner stacked the deck with four liberal critics of the alcohol industry against one representative from The Beer Institute.
So what's the story really about? Turning Big Beer into the next Big Tobacco:
For the last two years, a committee of 28 state attorneys general has been investigating alcohol advertising as part of an effort to reduce underage drinking. While the group says it has no plans to sue the companies, many of the states represented in group were involved in lawsuits that led to a landmark $256 billion settlement in 1998 against the tobacco companies.
Steven Rowe, attorney general of Maine and co-chairman of the Youth Access to Alcohol Committee of the National Association of Attorneys General, said the self-regulatory efforts of the beer, spirits and wine companies were inadequate.
Ask not for whom the last-call bell tolls. It tolls for thee.
[cross-posted to the NewsBusters.org]
