A BBC investigation has found British American Tobacco (BAT) violating its own voluntary international marketing standards in Nigeria, Malawi and Mauritius, using tactics that appeal to youth and circumvent advertising restrictions. BAT promotes and sells single cigarettes in these countries, a marketing strategy that appeals to youth, who often can't afford to buy an entire pack. BAT also sponsored musical events that had no formal age checks at the door. Celebrities at these events wore clothing bearing cigarette brand logos. In Mauritius, where cigarette advertising was banned in 1999, BAT paid to paint retail stores the same color as their leading brand, Matinee. In Malawi and Nigeria, posters were seen depicting single cigarettes and pricing cigarettes individually. BBC observed children as young as eleven buying single cigarettes. BAT's website says the company's voluntary marketing standards "embody ... our commitment to marketing appropriately and only to adult smokers." They promise their tobacco advertising will not "be aimed at, or particularly appeal to youth," will "not feature a celebrity," and that the company will engage in "no event sponsorship unless the participants and audience are adults." Previously-secret tobacco industry documents show that BAT adopted voluntary marketing standards as a way to "demonstrate responsibility" while staving off stricter government regulation of their products.

Daniel Libit of The Politico reports that "among the things that the proliferation of TV cable news has wrought is slackened standards for what constitutes a political strategist," a term which has lost its meaning now that it is "used as a catchall tag for a whole host of people with varied -- and often peripheral -- backgrounds in electoral politics." Jane Fleming Kleeb, a so-called "Democratic strategist" -- a label which she openly admits is misleading -- says "this group of make-believe strategists has become something of a pundits club, with participants working together to compensate for each other's experiential or informational deficiencies." Bona fide strategist Ed Rollins "blames the cable news networks for 'dumbing down' good analysis in the name of multitudinous voices." Independent TV analyst Andrew Tyndall "thinks the 'mislabeling' is also the product of the media's unyielding 'bid to seem as though they are inside the horse race.'" Fleming Keeb says, "If you had a bunch of us in a room and asked if we are political strategists, I think you would get a lot of laughter."