Findings


 * The overall findings that I've come to based on the different sources collected is that the general media, when reporting something as gruesome as a canibalistic, drug-fueled rampage; they tend to be fairly factually accurate. While there are small differentiations in the main topics, the general skew is that bath salts have become a large problem in the U.S.. This being the case, all the information presented in the majority of the reports show that the trend was largely towards the negative, with no advocates for the use of drugs and it's positive effects. This becomes unfair to those who would argue that the attack in Miami was a subjective incident and that the bath salts weren't the only attributing factor. The credibility of the information can be questioned based on the fact that the networks had brought in their own "experts" in the field; but all graphical data was substantiated.


 * Ap_Face_Chewing_Attack_rudy_eugene_ronald_poppo_thg_120530_wg.jpg


 * The appeal of the story was it's violent and gruesome nature, which shows in how much the networks played up to that point. All of the sources I found, after the Miami attack, showed footage of either the attack itself or just after the attacker had been shot to death. This was part of the frame for a lot of the sources. They all played on the idea of a "surreal occurence like the movies". Words such as "possessed", "zombie", and "evil" were used a lot in the reports to describe what happens when you use bath salts. This frame that's being created is a second "war on drugs" in which the main focus of the media is advocation for making illicit substances illegal.  What was omitted from the discussions within the media text is a voice that advocates for drugs and points out that this is an incident in which one person used bath salts and "ate a man's face".

