DIGITAL NEWS: (Pre Production) Feedback with Jo Clark & Further Development of our idea

We had another meeting with Jo today to discuss our idea and get further support. She was a little worried with the progress we had made, although the subject area for our stories was clear, we didn't know the specifics and had also not got in touch with any contributors yet.

Jo recommended that we just get straight on the phone to some potential contributors - it doesn't matter that we haven't perfected our storyline - we just need to line up people who may be willing to talk to us and be interviewed.

As we were quite set on the idea of visiting a vape lounge for our live segment, Jason got on the phone with Vape Royale in Canterbury. Jason got through to Simon who recommended we interview Paul on the Wednesday 11th. This has now opened this up as an option for us to follow.

We also thought it would be handy to talk to some health professionals / people running the stay sober and stoptober campaigns to get some information to use in the production. We were set on the idea of not interviewing doctors etc in our production due to our target audience, but this didn't mean that we couldn't speak to them to gain facts, stats and information to back up our story. 

I gave Medway Stop Smoking Service a call to see if they could offer any new information about switching to e cigarettes instead of actual cigarettes. They just referred me back to their website and provided their email address.

I then tried to get through to Andrew Scott Clark, the director of Public Health for Kent County Council, however, this seemed near impossible. When I got through to someone working for the county level and explained the information I required, they recommended I try getting through to someone who organises the Stoptober campaign at a national level. But when I got through to someone at a national level, they referred me back to contacting someone at a county level.

We then had a change of direction with our story. Jason mentioned that his friend makes his own 'juice' for e cigarettes. After doing more research into this, we found out that this is quite common - with people discussing how to make it in e cigarette forums and also making tutorials on youtube. Jo said this seemed like much more of a news story than our other idea which was a lot more general - this story also seems quite new and enticing. We will research this further as a subject area, get in touch with Jason's friend who will hopefully be willing to be interviewed and maybe see how we can still incorporate going to the vape lounge as our location. 

I then tried to get in touch with a doctor - to find out their general stance on e cigarettes and their opinion on making their own liquid for e cigarettes. I was able to find a doctor through my cousin who works at a surgery, and give them a list of questions. These were the questions I came up with and the answers I received:

1. E-cigarettes have been endorsed in the stopover campaign by the government, is this a good idea?

My initiative to help people reduce or quit smoking has to be endorsed unless the harm from the alternative is greater than that from smoking itself. There have been numerous studies looking into the harm from smoking e-cigarettes and despite the limitation due to length of exposure , it can be reasonable to state, at this current stage, that there are certainly less harmful toxic products present in e-cigarettes.

2. Do we know the full risks associated with e-cigarettes?

E- Cigarette contains nicotine and this in itself can lead to addiction. The public view being that it’s better than smoking may in the long run lead to an increase in the number of people taking this up. There is also this view that due this perception of it being completely safe, people might smoke this indoors and inside closed cars and expose young children to the risk of inhaling the vapour/smoke.

3. What are the pros and cons of smoking e-cigarettes?

The current evidence is that that there is less long term harm from smoking e-cigarettes and it certainly contains fewer carcinogenic by products but it does cause airway narrowing and thus can in the long run contribute to the development of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Asthma.

4. Are they really a healthier alternative to smoking? How?

As for current evidence , its considered that e-cigarettes are a safer alternative to smoking as they do not contain many of the by-products associated with the risk of many cancers, heart disease and stroke.

5. Some still contain nicotine meaning they are still addictive, what is your opinion on this?

They do contain nicotine and are thus addictive in the long run so in my opinion its role should be limited to using it to help smokers quit rather than a long term alternative to smoking.

6. We have heard of people making their own liquid for e-cigarettes, is this dangerous? What risks are involved with this?

People making their own fluid for e cigarettes can have dangerous consequences as they can lead to an increase in the risk of fire and the local effects on the oral cavity and respiratory passage can lead to irritation, swelling and breathing difficulties.