Yesterday Public Health England launched a campaign aimed at 40 to 60-year-olds, "83% of whom weigh too much or drink above guidelines".
Today they've launched another quit smoking campaign, this time using children to highlight the risks. The BBC reports:
Primary school children in Coventry are at the centre of a nationwide anti-smoking campaign.
Pupils from Earlsdon Primary School have drawn their own anti-smoking packaging ahead of the country's plain packaging rollout in May 2017.
Public Health England (PHE) said it hopes the message "resonates" with the UK's 7m smokers.
The children drew their own front-of-pack messages, with sentiments like, "don't be the smoker, be the stopper".
The drawings also feature illustrations of diseases that can be caused by smoking, like heart attacks and strokes.
See Primary school children make anti-smoking packaging (BBC News).
When I read the report at seven o'clock this morning I immediately clocked there was no opposing comment, despite the fact that Forest had sent BBC News online our reaction at least 19 hours previously.
Not for the first time I rang the online news desk and complained. The report has now been updated:
Campaign group Forest, which supports those who choose to smoke, said the use of children for an anti-smoking message was "emotional blackmail" and should not be "financed with taxpayers' money".
Director Simon Clark said: "Using children to make adults feel guilty about smoking is a new low for the public health industry."
But why should we have to chase them to provide some tiny element of balance? What is wrong with the BBC (and, to be fair, other news organisations)?
I've lost count of the number of times I've had to point out that what they are presenting as "news" is little more than state-sponsored propaganda.
Is this what they advocate at the BBC's famed journalism trainee scheme?
The Press Association also ran the story (Children create anti-smoking artwork for new-look cigarette packets) with a slightly longer quote from Forest:
Simon Clark, director of smokers' group Forest, said using children was "emotional blackmail".
He said: "Using children to make adults feel guilty about smoking is a new low for the public health industry. It's emotional blackmail and should be condemned by all decent people, not financed with taxpayers' money.
"Adults know the health risks of smoking. Most smoke because they enjoy it. Public health campaigners should respect that choice and stop bullying smokers to quit."
However even that required some cajoling (three phone calls to the news desk).
I don't know whether it's laziness or incompetence but journalists seem happy to file copy straight from a press release rather than picking up the phone to get an alternative opinion.
As it happens PHE's new quit smoking campaign has had very little press coverage but it has been reported by the BBC, ITV and the Press Association, three of Britain's major news outlets, none of whom made the effort to contact Forest direct but were happy to promote the PHE campaign without challenge.
The only news media that did contact us for a response was Sky News for whom I did a short interview via Skype last night.
Credit where credit's due but in general Sky is no better than its rivals. The truth is, to get our message across requires constant vigilance across all media platforms.
On a lighter note, I'm off to Cambridge to meet Dan Donovan. Always a pleasure ...
PS. Fancy that, Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies used her privileged position as guest editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme today to promote PHE's new anti-smoking campaign – without challenge, naturally.