The news on smoking: newspaper coverage of smoking and health in Australia, 1987-88.

All newspaper articles (n = 1601) mentioning tobacco or smoking drawn from a 12-month census of 30 Australian capital city newspapers in 1987-88 were coded for content, "slant," and apparent origin. Overall, 62 percent of articles were positive in their orientation toward smoking control objectives, 17 percent were negative, and 21 percent were neutral. Newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch published 55.7 percent positive and 23.7 percent negative articles compared to 68.0 percent positive and 13.7 percent negative articles in the other large chain of Australian newspapers.