Tips for newsmen on reporting Aids

The Sunday Mail 13 March 1994 THE three-day Aids workshop for editors in the print media ended on Friday with a call for accuracy, balance and gender awareness in reporting on the epidemic.

The workshop was organised by the Zimbabwe Aids Network (Zainet), National Aids Co-ordination Programme (NACP) and Unicef.

The participants expressed concern at some of the inaccuracies, insensitivity and outright sensationalism of some newspaper articles on Aids and HIV issues. It was pointed out that one of the major weaknesses in the reporting of Aids was the failure to distinguish the difference between Aids and HIV.

The participants examined various articles published on the epidemic and found that some of the articles used terminology that sensationalised the extent of the epidemic without proper analysis of the statistics.

It was felt that more education was needed on the analysis of statistics on Aids with regards to population distribution, gender and age groups.

A checklist of do’s and don’ts on Aids reporting was also compiled which included the need for balanced stories through research, follow-ups, as well as avoiding improper terminology, stigmatisation, labelling, using statistics without proper verification and analysis were included on the checklist.

Various resource persons who included NACP director Dr Everisto Marowa, Bill Saidi, a World Health Organisation representative and Claude Mararike from the Department of Sociology at the University of Zimbabwe, spoke on national responses to aids; ethics of reporting, epidemiology and statistics as well as gender issues in relation to reporting.

A study conducted by one of the workshop facilitators, Helen Jackson, on Press coverage of Aids in Zimbabwe from 1986 to 1991, revealed that both the number of articles and the amount of space devoted to the topics had increased steadily over the five years.

It noted that the nature and content of the articles showed a continuing bias towards issues more closely associated with Western patterns of the epidemic and comparative neglect of personal stories, local issues and items with a counselling focus.

However, the study noted an increase in the coverage of local stories on statistics, education and awareness, policy and economics and personal portrayals.

lessons for today

• Journalists have long covered outbreaks of infectious diseases, hence their role in epidemics is crucial.

• Outbreaks of infectious disease are not only public health crises, but also crises of information.

• Information dissemination in this era of technological advancement has to be managed well because a pinch or wrong dose of information can spread like wild fire across social networks and the remedial work on such can be daunting.

• In the absence of up-to-date scientifi c information, reporters are exposed to generalising reportage, which can damage societies.

• The world is battling the Covid- pandemic, ethical and accurate reporting is key in educating people about the challenge at hand.

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