This image above shows the chosen article from The Daily mail. The paper had only dedicated half a page to the story which I thought was a shame as it was the most positive article in the whole thing. But anyway, they have used half of the space for the title and the photo, this could be improved by giving the title more space as 3 words per line of text disrupts the flow of reading. The paper has used 5 columns this allows for a lot of text within a small amount of space. The article could be improved quite a bit simply by just giving it some more space, I think its important news and deserves more attention. If it was laid out in a classy and clean looking way people may be more tempted to read it.
(http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/technology/new-dead-heart-transplant-method-4500318)
Above is the first link I found was to the Mirrors online coverage of the story. There is a good video on there showing two of the patients looking very happy and healthy. The first thing I found out was it was three patients that have been given the revived hearts, the first Michelle Gribilas, 57 was the first successful patient. The second Damen, 43 and the third patient is still in intensive care thats why you only see two in the video.
This quote from the artivcle tells you the heart problems they both suffered with and how long ago they both had the procedures .
Jan, who suffered from congenital heart failure, had the procedure two weeks ago at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, Australia. He said: “I feel amazing. I’m looking forward to getting back out into the real world.
“I never thought I’d feel so privileged to wear the St Vincent’s pyjamas.”The dad-of-three added: “Without the donor I might not be here. It’s a wild thing to get your head around.”Patient Michelle, who also suffered congenital heart failure, could not walk 100m before her operation two months ago. She said: “I was very sick before. I’m a different person. I feel like I’m 40 years old. I’m very lucky.”
This image is of a machine used to help revive the dead hearts. The heart was bought back to life by being filled with blood again and the use of electricity then put in the machine where it was injected with a preservation solution that was developed by the Victor Chang cardiac research institute. Its belived 30 percent more lives will be saved using this method.
The preservation solution...
- Reduces the amount of damage to the heart
- Makes the heart more resilient to transplantation
- Reduces the number of heart muscle cells that die
- Improves heart function when it is restarted
- Limits damage from a lack of oxygen
- The preservation solution took 12 years to perfect
I found this information out by searching the Victor Chang Institute where they have their own news section. (http://www.victorchang.edu.au/home/news-events/news/news-detail/?news_name=world-first-heart-transplant)
The article in the Mirror also told us that since the first heart transplant in 1967 they had been using hearts from brain dead patients that were kept beating the whole time. St. Vincents (the hospital where the transplant happened) have been doing research into how long the heart can be sustained after it stops beating and that in these recent surgeries they used hearts that had been dead up to 30 minutes.
Surgeon Emily Granger said: “All of a sudden the heart that was blue begins to turn pink. It’s almost as though someone says, ‘Oh hello, I’m awake now’. It gives a little wriggle and it starts beating.”
The article tells us the portable machines made by the chang institute were called 'heart in a box' they submerged the hearts in the preservation solution and connected them to a circuit that made them beat again.
Prof Peter MacDonald said: “Based on the performance of the heart on the machine we can tell if it will work if we transplant it." &
“This breakthrough represents a major inroad to reducing a shortage of organs.”
In two of the cases doctors had flown with the hearts in the boxes from the place the people had died to the hospital. It has been shown other organs can be transplanted after death before but this is a first for a heart.
Surgeon Kumud Dhital, who performed the transplants, said he “kicked the air” when the first surgery was successful.
I think just after reading the way it was talked about in this article the focus in on the surgeons who performed the transplant but it would be more interesting to include more about the research facility as the real breakthrough is the preservation solution. I think the term 'heart in a box' is really quite sweet, it seems like a perfectly portable gift in a box and is something worth including in articles.
This next article I looked at was online by the BBC news. It made it much more clear that the transplant was made in a hospital in Sydney, Australia. I know it will definitely be in a lot of international news because of this. The article started pretty much the same as the last stating all the basic facts.
It then went on to talk about the similar process of liver warming/preservation. Although this information is relevant and interesting I think it kind of takes the focus of the main part of the article and makes it look like a less impressive achievement than it could of done.
One thing I have noticed about looking at online articles is that they put minimum effort into the layout of the articles and it looks although they haven't bothered using a grid at all. I think they could improve this really simply even if they were to just add a two column grid system in just to shorten the lines a little.
I now wanted to look how international papers had approached the topic, firstly by looking at where the story was closer to home in Australia by looking at paper The Australian.
The article started with a video by Australian sky news. This video told me that they had been working on this project for four years the result of these recent successful patients after all that time is a huge breath of fresh air for them. A part of the article quotes the 57 year old woman who had the surgery saying she 'feels like 40' again.
Above you see two really interesting images from the article. Including a photo of one of the doctors flying with the heart he has just revived. This is something I personally wanted to see so I think its good they've included it.
I then came across an article on the Hindustan Times website. This paper is an Indian national paper. The article didn't include any information I had'nt seen already and had a lack of images but it proves the story is internationally important as its reaching all different countries and sparking interest.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/international/2014/10/25/exp-medical-breakthrough.cnn.html
The link above is to CNN news online. It shows a video about 4 minutes long talking about the topic and also talking with one of the doctors from St.Vincent hospital. Once again proving its importance as its not just newspapers but also national news channels reporting the story. This makes me think if its big enough in America to make national news why could I only find a half a page article on it in 1/3 of the papers I bought here. Is it because in Britain gossip, shock and fear is what drives people to buy news? There was such a distinct lack of positive news and I think that really needs to change, we need some motivation to drive us rather than just being scared of everything.
Although I didn't see the Independent write a physical version of this article I have to say this online approach to it is my favourite so far in terms of layout. Firstly the image is stunning, you see this organ that looks completely out of place and you feel its out of its environment and it gives an uncomfortable feeling but it looks so beautiful, the lack of blood stops it from being gory and instead it looks strangely peaceful. Unlike the other articles they only use this image rather than many in a row. This keeps it really simple and the one photo seems even more effective. The text is really simple and in one thin column, although it looks aesthetically appealing I still think they should take further inspiration from the newspapers layout and recent elegant rebrand and consider using more of the new fonts and more than one column.
Another layout I thought was quite effective was by The Verge (a technology based news source in New York). They once again had chosen to use one photo to increase its effectiveness. They used a quote within the large body of text at the bottom showing they were partly using a two column grid system and its a shame they couldn't of taken this further by splitting up the rest of the text into two also, but the part they did is really effective and just makes the layout that little bit more interesting than the others.
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