In class on Monday I was able to bounce my idea for my final project off of my classmates. I knew I wanted to do something with tanning and the risks/dangers of indoor tanning. I was able to get a lot of good feedback and narrow my topic down. Because I know a couple of people who have been diagnosed with skin cancer I thought it would be interesting to do a story on them. I have one friend that despite having skin cancer continues to tan. I think it would be really cool to examine why she continues to tan and if it is an addiction. I also think it would add a lot to the project if I got a professional opinion about tanning safety and whether it can be considered an addiction like drugs or alcohol.
In the next week I plan on getting in touch with all of the people I know who have had skin cancer. I want to double check they will be comfortable speaking about the topic as well as be available for video and pictures. Also, I am going to get in contact with Health Services and see if there are any professionals I can contact or student groups involved with skin care. In addition to all of those things I am going to do more research about tanning and skin cancer so I can have a good background on the topic.
Although this is not a story, the pictures and interviews inspired me for my own story:
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4160527/indoor-tanning-addictive
Alison,
ReplyDeleteSounds good. Think about ways that you could find as many people as possible who have gotten cancer or were otherwise injured by tanning. For example, if you send an email to everyone on your mailing list explaining what you are doing and what you are looking for and ask them to forward it to people in their address book, you will instantly have hundreds of sources. Same goes for Facebook or Twitter. You need to develop some databases: All the people you can find who have gotten sick from tanning salons; All the dermatologists in the Seacoast area; All the tanning salons in the Seacoast area (or whatever area you want to restrict your story to); medical and environmental journals that address the issue. These are just a few ideas. If you develop these before you do anything else you will be sure to have a wide variety of top-quality sources.