Table 3

Number of newspaper items per category in four Quebec French-language newspapers, 1950–1989

	1950–1954	1955–1959	1960–1964	1965–1969	1970–1974	1975–1979	1980–1984	1985–1989	Total	Total (%)
Number of newspaper items	1333	1015	1038	982	951	1017	1365	2064	9765	100
Prosmoking
Tobacco ads	685	612	543	412	313	358	425	173	3521	36
‘Anti-smoking’
Health	143	196	279	328	365	363	441	715	2830	29
Smoke free spaces	3	7			17	77	75	386	565	6
Cessation ads	7		1	9	7	18	40	43	125	1
Fire	21	3	3	7	8	1	10	5	58	1
Subtotal	174	206	283	344	397	459	566	1149	3578	37
Unknown
Business	94	25	52	80	43	23	32	77	426	4
Letter		1	5	3	6	46	80	150	291	3
Crime	107	28	20	21	38	7	7	53	281	3
Tax	44	17	13	16	11	16	51	62	230	2
Cartoon	30	6	8	3	35	30	54	47	213	2
Other ads	52	34	30	19	7	1	28	37	208	2
Editorial	11	9	7	6	6	9	21	78	147	2
Agriculture	34	19	18	19	15	11	6	17	139	1
Consumption data	27	19	21	11	15	12	12	15	132	1
Personality	11	6	9	12	16	8	21	36	119	1
Pipe	20	9	3	5	8	5	6	3	59	1
Litigation	2		6	1		1	2	21	33	0.3
Other	40	21	19	25	38	30	54	139	366	4
Missing/illegible	2	3	1	5	3	1	0	7	22	0.2
Subtotal	474	197	212	226	241	200	374	742	2666	27
Total	1333	1015	1038	982	951	1017	1365	2064	9765	100
News stories about health containing denial-doubt	24	48	27	22	10	1	1	11	144
As percentage of all health items	17%	24%	10%	7%	3%	0.3%	0.2%	2%	5%