Ledger’s death again?
In Tuesday, February 12th’s issue of USA Today on page 6D there was an article written by Rita Rubin called Ledger’s death turns a new spotlight on ‘polypharmacy’. The article was really interesting and I honestly think that Rubin did great reporting in this article. First off, I really liked how Rubin gave an in-depth explanation of what “polypharmacy” was all about to readers. She also gave a great amount of background information on polypharmacy and prescription drugs which I also thought was really great to provide readers with, it also showed readers that the reporter did her research. Rubin mentioned in the article that the DEA is investigating the issues related to the combination of drugs that Heath Ledger took and she said that they are checking if there were any violations of the Controlled Substances Act. While I think this is a very interesting fact for readers to know, I was disappointed that Rubin failed to give more information about the Controlled Substances Act and what it states. Personally, as a reader myself, I don’t know what the Controlled Substances Act is really all about. Rubin also talked about how some doctors are in the dark about their patients taking other perscription drugs, and I thought that this was a really interesting thing to bring up and another great story idea for another piece. Do they think its a problem that people are being perscribed all these drugs? Maybe they should investigate that problem instead, and investigate the fact that some doctors don’t care about the other drugs their patients are on, and the fact that the ones that do care are not actually aware that their patients are on other drugs. I think that Rubin did an excellent job in this article, and did some great reporting. However, there were still some problems that I had with this article. It bothers me personally that reporters continue to talk about Heath Ledger. I think that Rubin could have talked and wrote an article about polypharmacy without relating it to Ledger’s death or using the topic of the article in focus to Ledger’s death. I think that it is time to leave Heath Ledger’s death alone and time to let him and his family rest in peace with it. Also, while I really liked the sources that Rubin used, I think it would have been valuable to her article to have some more credible sources, such as real doctors and psychiatrists opinions on this issue of polypharmacy. All in all, I think that Rubin did an excellent job with this article. I was extremely interested in the article, and the structure and focus of the information provided was really well done.
