Philip Morris should not only be blamed. If there are strict laws regarding cigarette advertisements in Pakistan, then obviously, the publishing media must be aware of them as well. Why didn’t the media take notice of them before publishing these adverts? Where are the media ethics and responsibilities? It is the responsibility of newspapers to ensure that such advertisements that are in blatant violation of the sovereign law of Pakistan are discouraged. The advertisements are scanned before publishing and reviewed minutely, they do not happen to appear suddenly.
Why is the tobacco company being sued when the printing media should have been taken to task for they are the ones who printed these advertisements in their magazines? Were the managers drugged or bribed that they forgot to check the ifs and donts list? The newspaper companies should have out rightly refused to print advertisements by Philip Morris. These printing advertisement people otherwise are big nit pickers that they hang you by the noose if required details are not appropriate. How is it possible that they made such a big error?