367 



Tobacco Company 



March 3, 1994 wayne w, juchatz 



Senior Vice President 

 General Counsel and Secretary 



Winston-Salem. N.C. 27102 

 919-741-6378 



Mr. Richard C. Wald 



Senior Vice President/ABC News 



Capital Cities/ABC, Inc. 



47 West 66th Street 



New York, New Yoric 10023 



Re: Day One - 2/28/94 



Dear Dick: 



Once again I find myself writing a letter calling your attention to another example of your network's 

 biased and sensationalized reporting on a tobacco-related issue. 



Had your reporters conducted even a cursory review of the public information on reconstituted tobacco 

 they would have learned that in 1979, 1981, and 1989 three Surgeon General's Reports discussed this 

 process. This is not a process, as reported, which has "never been disclosed" to the public or the 

 government. It is also a process that was documented in these Surgeon General's Reports and 

 elsewhere as resulting in a reduction of nicotine. 



This lack of thorough research and biased reporting is particularly troublesome when ABC decides to 

 communicate with the American public on a controversial subject. Your viewers are entitled to 

 receive all of the information and come to their own conclusions. This can only happen if the news 

 report contains an unbiased presentation of all the facts and not a reckless reporting of information 

 selected to support a predetermined conclusion. 



There are some additional points 1 feel compelled to raise concerning this Day One segment: 



(i) The clear (if not intended) implication of this segment was that Reynolds "boosts" the nicotine 



content of our cigarettes by adding nicotine to reconstituted tobacco. This couldn't be farther 

 from the truth and should have been readily apparent to any conscientious reporter. Tlie 

 simple fact is that no nicotine is added and the reconstitution process actually results in 

 tobacco with lower levels of nicotine than tobacco leaf 



Contrary to the impression created, our use of reconstituted tobacco has the net effect of 

 reducing the nicotine yields of the cigarettes into which reconstituted tobacco is blended. The 

 use of reconstituted tobacco and other mahufacturing processes have in fact reduced the sales 

 weighted average "tar" and nicotine yields of U.S. cigarettes by more than 60 percent over the 

 last 40 years. This is another relevant and readily available piece of information that your 

 reporters could have obtained from Surgeon General's and FTC reports. Enclosed is a copy of 

 a letter sent to Dr. Kessler on this subject. 



