Deadline for Health: The Media’s Response to Covering HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria in Africa
Media Challenges

A major challenge facing the media is how to avoid “AIDS fatigue” among editors, journalists and the public and how to provide sustained coverage of the story in a meaningful way. AIDS is an epidemic that is “easy” to cover at its worst. As death rates rise and the effects of the virus are evident for all to see, sensational stories are easy to produce. The crude adage “if it bleeds, it leads” tends to dictate coverage of the disease. But when the early sensational impact of AIDS-related deaths wears off, how does one maintain public attention when dead bodies have lost their ability to shock?

Still, HIV/AIDS receives more coverage than TB or malaria. Is it because TB and malaria are commonplace and there is comparatively widespread understanding of their causes and treatment? Is it because there is no cure for HIV/AIDS? Or because the political wrangling over affordable access to treatment is a good media story? Is it because journalists are poorly trained and do not understand the relationship between HIV and opportunistic infections? Or is it a result of new AIDS-targeted funding injected by international initiatives, new budget lines in development aid and a proliferation of new nongovernmental organizations focused on HIV/AIDS?

Whatever the reasons, the fact is all three diseases are part of an even larger developmental story that affects their progress and prevention. Analyzing and explaining the multiple challenges of poverty, housing, sanitation, job creation and nutrition as they relate to creating a less receptive environment for HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria requires skilled journalists who can engage with the issues and convey them to their readers, listeners or viewers in ways they can understand.

Reporting on all the complicated aspects surrounding these diseases requires knowledge in several areas, a more diverse selection of stories and various points of view – not just that of the government. The medical/public policy story must include financial scrutiny of budgets and allocations; analysis of health infrastructure and the availability of trained staff at all levels; descriptions of the problems of delivering antiretroviral therapy in resource-poor settings; discussion of drug effectiveness and resistance; explanation of voluntary counseling and testing services, publicizing of support networks, HIV prevention and health promotion campaigns that resonate with young people and other sectors of society; and, above all, the ability to integrate health into larger developmental questions.

The socioeconomic aspects of HIV/AIDS, in particular, involve exploring the meaning of human rights in the context of African patriarchal family systems and analyzing and explaining everything from the discrimination and violence against girls and women to the marginalization of the poor and the stigmatization of the sick. “Stigma is a very important issue,” said Jean Nachega, M.D., of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore, who conducted the Botswana research. “AIDS is still a highly stigmatized disease, and people with a fear of stigma tend to be less compliant in taking their medications.”

Covering all that is a tall order for health reporters and editors. Indeed, journalists in all five countries expressed a common concern about their own lack of skills and the difficult environments in which they work. This includes a lack of specialized training in subjects such as health, science and public policy, limited material resources, such as computers and tape recorders, little time to spend time out of the newsroom researching stories, and highly politicized workplaces in which they are expected to cover the speeches and statements of government ministers. “Ninety percent of the media is owned or supported by political players,” said Robert Jamieson, publisher of The Chronicle in Malawi, which runs a public health column in every edition. “So we will have one agenda and that agenda is to push forward the priorities of that particular party.”

These deficiencies in the media are not unique to African journalists, but in a resource-constrained environment they are exacerbated. “The most popular radio station in Malawi has no recording studio, and the reporters’ wages are as low as $47 a month,” said Anderson Fumulani, a media consultant who was the lead researcher for the project in Malawi. In some cases, journalists have to pay their own way to travel to assignments.

The practice of “investigative journalism,” as it is understood in the United States, refers to a very specific in-depth approach to issues that requires time and resources only dreamed of by most African reporters. In most African countries, the term “investigative journalism” simply refers to opportunities reporters may have to initiate and explore stories that require some degree of research and time out of the office – practices that in many better-resourced newsrooms would be considered standard journalism procedure.

The “juniorization” of the profession is another phenomenon with negative implications for quality healthcare journalism. This process, which sees senior editorial staff move into managerial roles – or out of the media altogether into more lucrative jobs in public relations or government – leaves younger, less experienced reporters in their places, many of them women. That contributes to an environment of low status and low pay for health reporters, weakening media coverage even more.