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Category: HIV and AIDS [REMOVE]

Protect children’s best interests when prominent figures pay them a visit

An article published in The Star, “Princess takes a bow at care centre” (22/06/2010, p. 3) about Japanese Princess Takamado’s visit to the St. Francis Care, has given Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) reason to be mad.  It reported on a Japanese Princess’s visit to a care centre in Boksburg, which cares for adults and children affected by HIV/AIDS. A picture and name of a child interacting with the princess were provided, together with the names of two children at the centre.

A refreshing look at love in the time of HIV

In a time when reporting on HIV and AIDS is in desperate need of fresh angles to avoid fatigue of the subject, it is exciting to come across an article once in a while that reports on the matter with an amazing human element. One such article was “Love in the time of HIV,” City Press (21/02/2010, p. 25) which was nominated for a MAD OAT Glad for reporting on the challenges HIV-positive teenagers face when they reach puberty.

Ethical issues raised by reporting on children affected by HIV and AIDS
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The article published in The Star by Health-e News Service, “Without ARVs life looks bleak for HIV/AIDS patients” (31/08/2009, p.8), and the accompanying photograph provided by The Star, received a MAD OAT Mad nomination. The article identified two children living with HIV and The Star provided a picture of one of them. Although the article is commended for investigating and raising awareness around drug shortages in the Free State and the effects this has had on HIV-positive patients, this was overshadowed by the identification of two children as being HIV-positive.

“No big deal” Poverty, Service Delivery and Election Coverage: Election Report for week ending 3 Apr

This week MMA looks at key topics of elections stories. The results of the topics of elections coverage present a number of issues to discuss. For this report however, we will build on the prior week’s report “Is the media campaigning for the ANC and COPE?”, and focus on the level of attention devoted to the topics of manifestos, campaigning, poverty and service delivery.

This report addresses the results of media monitoring conducted from 13/03/09 until 01/04/2009. According to the monitoring results, it would appear that media consider simplistic coverage of campaign activities and political conflict to be more important than engaging parties and the public over the content of party manifestos, and how parties believe such major issues as poverty and service delivery should and can be addressed.

Guinea pigs and the frantic search for the AIDS vaccine gel

The coverage of Microbicide trails in 2007 the following findings showed the following patterns:

  • The stories were afforded significant prominence in some of the newspapers monitored.
  • Just over a quarter of the content items dramatised the issues.  This included using phrases such as “frantic search”, describing the volunteers as “desperate” or “pleading”, the use of exclamation marks, different font sizes and capitals to emphasise controversy, and the use of unnamed sources who make allegations that are not substantiated in the items monitored;
  • Most content items analysed show a clear bias either in favour of the HIV and AIDS researchers, or against the researchers.
  • In contrast, the volunteers are treated ambivalently and even in a demeaning way in several content items.
Lazy newsgathering distorted murder news

As a reader of Daily Sun newspaper, you will very possibly have a different understanding of what recently happened in Zandspruit, Honeydew than if you were a reader of The Star. The angle these two newspapers took on the story of the 7-year old girl who was found dead on the 10th March 2008 allow for an interesting comparison. The Star focused on the accusations that the police failed to act on several phone calls from the family to report the missing girl. Daily Sun however did not mention this at all and limited its reporting to describing the incident, making the reaction of people to the police completely unfathomable. These stories gives a clear example of the necessity of balanced reporting.

Angle on AIDS

WORLD AIDS DAY :
DOES THE MEDIA HAVE REASON TO CELEBRATE?

Tune in to MEDIA @ SAfm this Sunday from 10am as we showcase exclusive audio from educational radio projects in Africa and assess the media’s coverage of HIV/ AIDS in 2007.

We’ll also hear a panel of local and international experts suggesting

THE MEDIA’S ANGLE ON AIDS FOR 2008

MEDIA @ SAfm, 10am, Sunday 2 December 2007

Another in the radio conference series by the Media Monitoring Project, Open Society Foundation and SAfm.

Media and the 16 Days Campaign 2006

The coverage of The 16 Days Campaign in Gauteng media coverage, including e-tv and SABC 3 prime time news, was reasonable good in most aspects. Some improvements could be made in terms of reporting on woman and child abuse.

Media and the reporting of the budget speech

The budget speech attracts much media attention every year. This year was no different. When reporting on the budget speech, it is expected that the media ‘translate’ the implications for their readers. In this respect the reports on the speech were not entirely successful.

MAP HIV regional findings

This report covers the regional findings of the HIV and AIDS and Gender Baseline Study carried out as part of the Media Action Plan on HIV and AIDS and Gender (MAP) led by the Southern African Editors’ Forum (SAEF).

The Media Monitoring Project (MMP) that leads the monitoring and evaluation arm of MAP conducted the monitoring, analysed the data and produced the results for the region as well as the individual countries.

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