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Cannabis News: 'named & shamed'
6/6/08|Canna Zine|

A couple of weeks ago the Canna Zine cannabis news website implemented a program of naming and shaming the worst of the Great British press, after we illustrated the depth's British journalism regularly plumbs in the name of getting a cannabis story, no matter what the cost in personal integrity.

The term "yellow" journalism was first coined at the start of cannabis prohibition in the United States, when William Randolph Hearst, a young newspaper magnate who was rich on daddies money, decided he would never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Starting with The San Francisco Examiner, he soon moved into the lucrative New York market, after acquiring The New York Journal. Once established in the big apple, Hearst engaged in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, which led to the creation of "yellow journalism"--sensationalized stories of dubious veracity.


Hugh Grant look-a-like William Randolph Hearst
Photo courtesy of Canna Zine

Hearst used his "yellow" tactics between 1936 and 1937, to publicise Harry J Anslinger's fabricated anti-marijuana stories. A negative PR campaign based around racism, bigotry and corruption, which ultimately led to the creation of the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act.

From this point forth cannabis as we know it today, was outlawed, and it took the versatile hemp plant with it.

With not a mention of public health, psychosis or schizophrenia to be seen or heard.

This was all about money.

These days we don't see a lot in the way of yellow journalism. Thankfully the UK is home to some of the best journalists in the world, but every once in a while, standards slip, as was graphically illustrated today by a regional publication called the Worcester News, which is part of the Newsquest Midlands group.

Hard News
At this stage its fair to mention that, when writing for newspapers there is an "industry standard" when it comes to constructing a 'hard news' article. Long story short, any news story should be constructed like a pyramid.

Right at the top of the pyramid, in the first sentence, is the meat and bones of the story. The most important facts live here.

Underneath this, each layer of the story is constructed in terms of reverse importance, most important uppermost, least important toward the bottom.

WWWWW
Its important when writing the first four or five lines, to include the 5 'W's. That is, Who, What, When, Where and Why.

So when I saw a headline on Google News, which read "Cannabis addict’s threat to kick PC in teeth", needless to say as the editor of Europes foremost online cannabis news magazine, I was keen to read the rest of the story.

Remembering back to what I said about the "construction" of a news article, the first line read, "An "aggressive" man threatened to kick a police officer's teeth in after he was arrested for possession of cannabis."

A great, all-action start.

The story continues; "Nicholas Collins appeared at Worcester Magistrates Court where he admitted possession of cannabis, resisting a police officer and breaching a curfew order."

"He was sentenced to four weeks in custody for possession and a further three weeks for resisting arrest, to run concurrently. The sentence was suspended for 18 months and Collins was also given an 18-month supervision order."

"Collins, aged 23, of Burrows Close, Malvern, was challenged by police in Ledbury on Saturday, May 22, at about 7.50pm."

"When police approached him they were confronted by a strong smell of cannabis and could also smell alcohol."

Fully 5 sentences before the word "alcohol" is mentioned.

For those 'hardened' speed-readers who quickly scan the headlines and first couple of lines of a story, and normally glean the most important facts straight away, they wouldn't even have seen it, and for them, the story was of a troublesome cannabis user who got a bit "lairy" when the police tried to feel his collar.

A fact backed up by the sensationalistic headline.

Meanwhile, languishing right at the bottom of the story, literally the last paragraph, was this little nugget;

Rob Macrory, defending, said he had suffered abuse from his father as a child and his mother was an alcoholic. He said: "In between the bad, there's an awful lot of good and he does have an old head on young shoulders. He really only lets himself down on drink.

"It's something he seeks solace in," and with writing like this to deal with who can blame him?

So the guy obviously has some alcohol issues. Forgive me for being pedantic but shouldn't those facts have figured in the opening couple of lines?

Unless of course, you are looking to sensationalise a story on the back of what is after-all, a hugely important social issue for the UK currently.

From a news editors perspective its an effective way of getting cheap visitors on your website. But cheap visitors dont come back.

The fact is this report was written with the sole intention of showing a cannabis user in a negative light, and it adds absolutely nothing to the greater cannabis debate.

It was clearly written by someone who was too lazy to do a bit of research on cannabis, and lazy journalism is poor journalism.

The fact Nicholas Collins was out of his tree on 'fighting juice' doesn't seem to have mattered to the hack who penned this diatribe, and for this reason, the Worcester News wins the Canna Zine "William Randolph Hearst" award for shoddy cannabis journalism.

Its quite a prestigious award.

You can e-mail the editor to congratulate him using the following address; kevin.ward@midlands.newsquest.co.uk. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , using www. worcesternews.co.uk as the subject line. I'm sure Mr Ward will be thrilled to hear from you.

Click HERE to read the Worcester News article in full.

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Thanks to Canna Zine site member Mike Mills, for bringing this to our attention.

If you're reading something we're not writing about, do what Mike did and drop us a line, just in case we missed it.

[News Admin note : I personally don't think William Randolph Hearst looks at all like Hugh Grant At least not in this picture ]

 

Buzzby

I just sent off a "congratulatory" email to the editor of the Worcester News. I hope he gets a million of them. I've been noting this phenomenon for many years. The headline tells of some dreadful thing that someone intoxicated by marijuana has done. When you read the whole story you find out that he was drunk or on other drugs or that there's no evidence that he'd smoked weed within the last few hours.

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