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The Epidemic And The Media
The public health story of our time is, of course, AIDS. In the almost two decades since U.S. newspaper articles first described a mysterious disease affecting the gay community, the world press has come in for plenty of criticism, as well as some praise, over how they've responded to the pandemic. The questions are perhaps no different than those on any other subject, except for the urgency of this one: What responsibility do journalists have? How can they make an ongoing crisis fresh, day after day, story after story?
The worldwide AIDS epidemic is far more than just a medical story, and too often media overlook the social, economic and political implications, as Danny Schechter warns. If reporters were doing a good job of putting AIDS issues on the public agenda, would the numbers of infected people still be growing at a shockingly high rate? How can the media sustain successful AIDS education, and how can they best work with public health advocates? And, as Laurie Garrett asks in her must-read piece, "What is the strategy? How can we slow this plague in the absence of a vaccine or cure?" More questions: How can the media break through the illiteracy and lack of availability of televisions and radios in many parts of the world to get news and necessary information to people who desperately need to hear it?
MediaChannel has assembled a package of articles and links that address these and many other questions. We focus special attention on sub-Saharan Africa, the epicenter of the crisis, where society has been transformed by a plague that has killed almost 15 million people and where over 10 percent of adults are infected. Does Africa portend what's to come in other continents, especially Asia, and is the lack of attention to media's role in Europe and South America dangerously shortsighted? How can the world media rise to the challenge of reversing this deadly progression?
We have also asked journalists and health workers around the world what causes inadequate coverage and how it can be changed. They have responded with criticism and praise of the media's role in the crisis, along with accounts of many innovative public health campaigns.
Please share your comments in our Forum.
— Elinor Nauen, (enauen@aol.com) editor
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Diagnosing AIDS Media
MediaChannel asked journalists, health workers and AIDS activists for comments on AIDS coverage and campaigns. Responses from around the world include both scathing critiques and encouraging solutions. From The Media Channel, November 29 2000
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A Call To Arms
Pulitzer Prize-winning medical writer Laurie Garrett on the duty of the media to hold leaders, scientists and the rich accountable in dealing with the "number one issue in the world." From Columbia Journalism Review, July 13 2000
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Clueless Press
After 20 years journalists in southern Africa are still struggling with how to develop positive approaches to reporting on HIV/AIDS, says Aulora Stally, head of Southern African AIDS Information Dissemination Service. From Afronet, April 9 1999
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Conflicts Of Interest?
The vast majority of ads in leading U.S. HIV/AIDS publications come from pharmaceutical manufacturers. Does that make for possibly life-threatening bias in recommended therapies, or are the magazines even more determined to look critically at drug companies? From Utne Reader Online.
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"Dark Continent" Still Dark
A Pulitzer for Mark Schoofs' Village Voice series "AIDS: The Agony of Africa" and controversial comments by South African President Thabo Mbeki put AIDS into the headlines of the U.S. press— but are they still getting the story wrong?
From TomPaine.com, May 26 2000
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Sleeping Watchdogs Lie
Despite all the research, why do journalists so often decide to present as respectable science the discredited case that HIV does not cause AIDS? From HivNet.ch
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Would A Betting Line Help?
Public health (including AIDS) ranks far behind sports and crime in news attention, according to Media Tenor. Also: the role of AIDS in South African election coverage. From Media Tenor, November 1 2000
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Faces Of AIDS
This serial narrative in 29 very short chapters shows how one family deals with AIDS _ and how journalists can frame a story like it. From The Poynter Institute, February 1 1996
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Belated Response To Africa's Peril
Until AIDS was declared a national security threat to the United States, it struggled to get any attention in the press, writes Anup Shah. How many lives could have been saved if the urgency was underscored earlier? From Global Issues, November 5 2000
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AS THE MEDIA WATCH THE WORLD, WE WATCH THE
MEDIA.
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