Photo by Olena Afanasyeva
Fifteen invited journalists, seven from African countries, were at Reuters in Times Square, New York, for a week-long Reuters Foundation course on reporting HIV and AIDS that ended on 30 November, the eve of World AIDS Day.
Through an intensive week they have done newsroom exercises to sharpen writing and reporting skills and shared tips on keeping alive an often gloomy story where complacency, a growing problem, is a killer.
They have also talked high-profile speakers such as U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs – whose advice was "follow the money, hold your government to account - and hold my government to account", U.S. Global AIDS coordinator Mark Dybul and Seth Berkley, a leading figure in the search for an AIDS vaccine who said he was still optimistic despite recent trials setbacks.
Richard Meares, Reuters
Following reports were written by workshop participants:
By Julius Ogunro, National Standard, Nigeria
Maggie Fox, health editor with Reuters based in Washington, presided over an exciting debate about reporting health in the developing world. The theme was on HIV/AIDS, but the discussion centered more on female genital mutilation and how this fuels the AIDS pandemic in the countries of the 15 participants.
Sherrine Masupelo of Zambian National Broadcasting Corp first raised the issue of circumcision. Masupelo said she did a story on a community in Zambia that circumcised their young males, and how it was discovered that the ratio of HIV in this community was smaller than the average in all of the Southern African country. This, she said, sparked off a rush for male circumcision in all of Zambia.
Frazer Potani of the Guardian of Malawi had a different perspective. Potani said he did a story on the harmful practice of female circumcision in Malawian communities. According to him, there were some elders in these communities with special fingernails to circumcise young girls. This was dangerous since if any of the girls is infected, others would be infected too, Potani said.
Zinhle Mapumlo of South Africa added that female circumcision was done with the intention of making girls not enjoy sex and thus be faithful to their husbands when they have grown up and are married. Nigerian Julius Ogunro said this was not necessarily so, explaining that in his part of Nigeria only pregnant women are circumcised. Fox added a new dimension when she told the group that there is a growing campaign against male circumcision in the US.
Ogunro talked about the changing attitudes to people living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria. According to him, in the past having HIV was considered a death sentence, but now "people tolerate it more." Swaminathan Nagarathinam of India explained that the story he did on the scarcity of drugs in the Tamil area led to positive changes. His comments however sparked another debate whether journalists should be advocates of a viewpoint. Fox said this was not Reuters style.
By Rebecca Quaicoe, Daily Graphic, Ghana
An Assistant Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health, David Hoos, on the second day of the HIV/AIDS training organized by Reuters for 15 journalists from across the world, called on reporters to be more critical of information that they received from officials on HIV/AIDS.
He said many journalists did not critically analyze data presented to them by either manufacturers of anti-retroviral drugs or the policies of their governments.
He particularly called on the media to challenge data since according to him there was more to most of the information given out for publication than immediately met the eye.
By Andrea Downer, Freelance Writer, Jamaica
It appears that HIV and AIDS will not be going away anywhere anytime soon.
The recent failed global HIV vaccine trials involving a Merck-manufactured vaccine paints a rather gloomy picture and has significantly diminished hopes of preventing new HIV infections in the near future.
The issue was the focus of an address by Founder and CEO of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, IAVI, Seth Berkley, who spoke to a group of international journalists in New York attending a five-day HIV/AIDS Reporting Workshop hosted by the Reuters Foundation.
Dr. Berkley said that while the failed study represented a major setback for HIV research, such setbacks are often a part of such scientific research. According to Dr. Berkley, while HIV has been known about for 25 years, research on it is still relatively new. While not being able to give a specific timeline for the development of an effective vaccine, he sees a vaccine as the world’s only hope.
“There is not likely to be a cure for AIDS. We still see an effective vaccine as the only way of driving down HIV infections and (eventually) reducing the number of persons who develop AIDS,” he said.
Fifteen journalists from around the world attended the workshop which ended on Friday, November 30th.
14 Dec 2007 11:28:07 GMT
good avenue of empowering journalists.
03 Dec 2007 11:56:58 GMT
It is really good to organize this kind of course for journalists and nice job, Reuters! Keep it up!