Studio Brief 4 - Message and Delivery - Research

Briefing notes

Create a body of visual research based upon a new article from a paper from the 22nd October.

A physical copy of the article

Looking through several papers including the T & A, The Sun, Daily Mirror and The Yorkshire Evening Post I found it difficult to find an article I felt I was interested enough in, the headlines of the day included 'Mother Of All Terrorrist' and 'Meet the Parents'. After further reading an article caught my eye, 'Legal Drug Killer' was the headline of the article in The Sun.

This article interested greatly me as I have heard several stories from friends about these 'Legal highs' and being a student in a city centre, drugs and partying are a popular topic. Personally I don't know of anyone that has encountered a serious problem with these substances however I have heard of numerous embarrassing and bad experiences from 'Legal highs'

Reading the article, I discovered the 20 year old male, Jimmy Guichard had died after suffering a heart attack and brain damage after smoking a popular legal high. He was found in his bedroom unconscious and only 24 hours later, his mother had to make the decision to turn his life support machine off.

After reading the article, I looked into the presentation of the story in the original paper, The Sun, and how it was reported in several other papers.

The Sun titled the story 'Legal Drug Killer' with a strap line of 'Lad dies in coma' underneath this image of Mr Guichard on a life support machine. I found this annotation of the photograph quite distasteful due the informality of 'Lad' in such a sensitive subject.

I looked at The Sun Online to see how the article was reported in contrast to its print.

The Sun Online used a different headline and strap line which seemed intriguing, why change the headline and strap line of an article. The headline was a quote from his mother while 'Legal drug' had been changed to 'Legal high' and the strap line consisted of 'Hurler Jimmy'. This inclusion of Hurler interested me as they had not mention Jimmy Guichard was a participant of the sport in the printed article. The whole article wan't available online, the image and headline was shown however a sign up and payment was required to gain access the full website. I don't agree with this payment for access current news and hopefully it isn't a sign of things to come however due to the nature of the content of The Sun, I believe the audience The Sun are targeting are less concerned about current news but the adult content The Sun is popular for. I believe The Sun changed the headline and strap line because of the context, the initial information an audience would see on the page needs to be strong enough to encourage them to subscribe. This use of sensitive article headline for profit creates moral questioning.  

I then looked at other sources for information. The Mail Online.

With a much more sensitive and formal approach The Mail Online article was much more informative. The article uses the photo seen above plus images of the alleged shop Jimmy bought these drugs from, UK Skunkworks. The article also shows images of Jimmy and his family, a baby photo and an image of him alone. The use of family photos increases the relationship between the article and reader as a emotional connection is formed.

The Mail Online didn't publish an article in their paper on the 22nd however their online article was publish on the 21st while The Sun's was published on the 25th of October, I am yet again surprised by the poor quality of The Sun.

The Mail Online article gave quotes from MP's as well as the alleged store UK Skunkworks:

After that case Canterbury Tory MP Julian Brazier urged Home Secretary Theresa May to change in the law on the sale of legal highs.

He wrote: 'Skunkworks's get-out clause for the sale is that the herb is not for human consumption, but their advice is to help you relax by burning the herbs in the home.

'I find these twisted semantics as repugnant as I am sure you do. Skunkworks, its fellow shops and its websites must be banned.'

Fellow Tory Tracey Crouch, the MP for Chatham, Kent where Jimmy died, echoed his sentiments.

She said: 'People need to understand the dangers of legal highs. Just because they are legal doesn't mean they're not harmful.

'The government needs to urgently review legislation around the sale and purchase of these substances.'

UK Skunkworks, which has 21 green-fronted shops across the south of England, has defended their sales.

A spokesman said there was no evidence that Karen's son who lived in Gravesend, Kent, bought one of their products, despite her claims.

He said: 'Our sympathy is with Mr Guichard's family.

'We get all our products from an official supplier and they do not have any UK Skunkworks branding on them, neither do our bags.

'All our products are clearly labelled 'not for human consumption'. Our customers are closely monitored and we check IDs.

'If we feel that someone is going to ignore the warning we will not sell the product to them.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2470128/Horrific-cost-taking-legal-highs-Mother-releases-shocking-picture-dying-son-20-suffered-heart-attack-smoking-herbal-substance.html#ixzz2kfAhMyuL
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

I found another copy of the article from The Irish Independent, this source created an interesting outlook.

With a similarly formal and sensitive approach as The Mail Online and the same publish date as The Sun, The Irish Independent primarily focuses on the story with the same information however creates a focus point around Jimmy's interest in sport and origins in Ireland. Jimmy had originally lived in Ireland where he was a member of a hurling club however had to move to England to look after his cancer suffering father, this wasn't mention in The Sun article. The focus of the article then changes to the legality of these highs in the UK, Ireland had outlawed these 'head shops' that sell these substances three years ago. I do believe there is a sense of patriotism within this article as the focus on the responsibility of the UK is built on greatly.

This article is from Kent Online, which is just as formal and sensitive as The Mail Online. The 4 examples have shown are the only online writings on the story and other papers have appeared to not publicise this story.

The Kent Online and The Mail published on the same day, the 21st and are nearly identical in writing however this video has been linked on The Kent Online:

This video of Mr Guichard's mother calling for the banning of legal highs in front of the alleged head shop Jimmy bought the drug from.

After reading into this story deeply, I thought it was best to look into similar cases of Legal Highs cases fatalities and how the media portrays them:

These comments from The Mail Online shows the views of the newspapers audience, some interesting opinions are expressed, the comparison of these head shops to pubs seems to have a negative response however I can agree with this comment although the negatives of alcohol are well known unlike these legal highs.
Another comment 'IF cannabis was legal', I don't necessary a agree with this comment as I believe this would simply allow previously non drug takers to experiment and then continue experimenting with other drugs.

After looking at new articles, I decided to look into the representation of these drugs in other forms of media:

Legally High : True Stories - Channel 4

Can I get high legally - BBC3

Crazy for party drugs - BBC3 (An interesting watch, filmed in Leeds)

The Angelus Foundation is a rich source of information of information relating to legal high containign statistics, ads, FAQS, videos, images and a extensive list of drugs.

Looking at statistic from The Angelus Foundation helped me improve my knowledge greatly.

This series of posters from The Angelus Foundation caught my eye simply due to my great appreciation for minimalism, straight to the point and effective, Informative as well as creating a shock value.

An A - Z of legal highs helped me gather information quickly and being on a well designed website was a treat after visiting the websites of the retailers of legal highs, also known as 'Head Shops'.

After looking into the availability of these drugs, I wanted to look at why these drugs are legal.

Reading this article from the trusted source BBC News, I learned changing the chemical compound declassifies the drug from the Misuse Of Drugs Act 1971. New chemical compounds are found by chemists and then ordered to made in China, then sent back to be taken and distributed for a profit.

This video gives examples of these legal versions of illegal drugs

These opinions were found below the BBC News article. Opinions from self claimed doctorates broaden the topic while a university student puts the use of these drugs in context.

The Misuse Of Drugs Act 1971 is the act that illegalises any drug that has been classed under the act. The chemical structures are illegalised, similar to copyright, the exact structure is copyrighted and not similar or edited versions.

Examples of the classification of chemical structures and not the illegalisation of phyco - active as a whole. 

An extract from the Class B listing of banned substances, looking at the 'When added' column, we can see new chemical formulas that have been illegalised recently. The famous Mephedrone appears as 4 - Methylmethcathinode but is more commonly known as Mkat or meow meow. This drug has to be the most publicised example of a legal high becoming illegalised in the past two generations.

This illustration shows clearly how the legality of a substance can be so easily changed.