The article “Smoking ban didn't hurt Illinois casinos, study says” By David Nicklaus presents a study that argues against the claim by Illinois’ casinos that they lost money as a result of a 2008 smoking ban. The author’s purpose in this article is to inform about the study and not express his own opinion. Even though the author writes about an “academic study” that is showing that the casinos didn’t lose any money as a result of the smoking ban, there is no clear evidence of a slant or bias on the part of the author. For example, early in the piece the author points out that the study was “funded in part by Missouri Group Against Smoking Pollution.” If the author wanted to express his own opinion that the study was something that he agreed with he could have left that fact out. On the other hand, the article is not biased/slanted. He mentions that the study was academic and done through “Washington University's George Warren Brown School of Social Work.”
The author’s viewpoint is balanced. He reports what this study found “When economic conditions were accounted for, casino admissions in Illinois did not decline significantly relative to neighboring states... Reductions reported in Illinois casinos are therefore not due to patrons leaving Illinois casinos for neighboring states where they could smoke” this helped me clarify what his viewpoint was. The word choice of the author has no emotional tone or preference to either side. Nicklaus uses connotations in some parts of his article to assist the reader’s understanding on the issue. The author also uses bold words to emphasize titles, proper names, and places that he found information from.
The information in this article is accurate, and the fact that Nicklaus works for STL Today; a well know news source, supports the reliability of this article. Since the author doesn’t use any bias or slant, the article is more trustworthy for someone to read. I would recommend this article to anyone looking for information on banning smoking.
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