Title: Reporting manual on HIV / AIDS.

POPLINE Document Number: 314780

Corporate Author(s):

Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

Source citation:

Menlo Park, California, Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2006 Dec. 68 p.

Abstract:

Reporting on HIV/AIDS--and the many ways the epidemic can touch the life of an individual as well as a country and the world--is extremely rewarding for a journalist. It is also extremely challenging. AIDS is a complex medical syndrome intertwined with issues of stigma, discrimination, sex, fear, ignorance, denial and death. Mia Milan, a senior resident advisor in Kenya to Internews adds that HIV/AIDS "has taken on a life of its own, a life that depends upon a multitude of vested interests linked to power, prestige, religion and money." Because reporting on HIV/AIDS ultimately deals with matters of life and death, and because many people will form their understanding of HIV/AIDS through the media, the story must be approached with clarity, precision and sensitivity. In 1992, a seminal book on AIDS was published. AIDS in the World contains an essay written by journalist Phyllida Brown that remains relevant today. She writes, "AIDS has become the first global health story. Like no other health storybefore it, AIDS spans all cultures and societies, in industrialized and developing countries alike. Yet for all its importance as a story, AIDS carries with it another obligation--thrusting onto the media the often unwanted and ambiguous role of educator for an audience that, by and large, relies on the press for nearly all it knows about AIDS." (excerpt)

Keywords:

Global
Manual
Journalists
Persons Living With HIV/AIDS
Journalism
Information Sources
Ethics
Antiretroviral Therapy
Product Approval
Foreign Aid
Tuberculosis
Malaria
Communications Personnel
Communication
HIV Infections
Viral Diseases
Diseases
Mass Media
Information
Sociocultural Factors
HIV
Legislation
Political Factors
Financial Activities
Economic Factors
Infections
Parasitic Diseases