Because magazines tend to contain exclusively national advertisements, they provide a good medium in which to examine how advertising affects coverage of pharmaceuticals, which are nationally marketed products.

While it was impossible to determine the percentage of ad revenue derived through pharmaceutical ads, this percentage was approximated by analyzing the advertising content of the magazines over a four-month period.  Amount of advertising was determined by counting the number of pages consisting of pharmaceutical ads (including fractions) and dividing by the total number of pages of advertising in an issue of the corresponding magazine.  The sample period for all magazines exceof advertising pt Formulary was the four months from March 1, 1999 to June 30, 1999 (approximately 17 issues).  Because Formulary was not readily available, only one issue was sampled.  The issue sampled was the issue that contained Formulary's sole article about the Littleton incident.

Approximately nine percent of advertising in Time and Newsweek was Pharmaceutical advetising.  Therefore, these magazines were considered "high advertisers" or "highly susceptible to advertiser pressure." 

Only one magazine available in Lexis-Nexis both covered Luvox's role in Littleton incident in depth and contained no pharmaceutical advertising: Insight on the News.  Perhaps so few magazines fit this criteria because (1) most magazines with few advertisements deal with esoteric subjects, and (2) overall, few articles discussed Luvox with regards to the Columbine attack in any publication. 

Another magazine, Formulary, provided the thorough coverage expected from low advertising publications yet contained a large proportion of pharmaceutical advertisements.  However, as a peer reviewed publication aimed at healthcare professionals, Formaulary follows a strict policy, including full disclosure of financial interests, specifically designed to prevent advertiser influence on editorial content.  For these reasons, advertiser influence on Formulary's coverage is likely quite low.

The preceding two magazines were considered "low advertisers" or "less susceptible to advertiser pressure."

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