AFRO-NETS> Media coverage of HIV/AIDS monitoring project

[Omololu Falobi <omololuf@micro.com.ng>]

Media coverage of HIV/AIDS monitoring project
---------------------------------------------

In March 2002, Journalists Against AIDS (JAAIDS) Nigeria commenced a 
project to monitor coverage of HIV/AIDS in the print media in Nigeria 
over a period of 12 months.

Under the project, JAAIDS will conduct analysis of media coverage of 
HIV/AIDS in selected national newspapers and magazines for frequency, 
accuracy and quality. The exercise will serve as a baseline to meas-
ure success of media intervention efforts, analyse trends of report-
ing and identify training needs. Dissemination of findings of the 
monitoring project will be done through bi-monthly publications to be 
circulated to media stakeholders including editors, media owners, re-
porters, media regulatory bodies etc. The reports will also be made 
available on the Nigeria-AIDS eForum as well as on the website: 
http://www.nigeria-aids.org 

Below is the summary of the report of the monitoring exercise for the 
month of March 2002. Readers? reactions, comments and inquiries are 
welcome. Please note that reproduction of the report must be with 
permission of Journalists Against AIDS (JAAIDS) Nigeria. The project 
is supported by The Futures Group International. For further informa-
tion, contact: <jaaidsng@nigeria-aids.org> 

Omololu Falobi
Project Director
Journalists Against AIDS (JAAIDS) Nigeria
mailto:jaaidsng@nigeria-aids.org 


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Summary of findings of HIV/AIDS media monitoring project for March 
2002

In a month when former American President, Jimmy Carter and Bill 
Gates (Snr), father of Microsoft magnate, Bill Gates visited Nigeria 
on an awareness-raising tour, it would have been a surprise if 
HIV/AIDS issues had not been given prime attention by the print me-
dia. 

The principle of personalities making news came to play in the cover 
treatment given to HIV/AIDS in the media during the duo's visit to 
the country, early in the month of March. During the visit, coverage 
of HIV/AIDS issues moved momentarily from inside pages where they are 
usually consigned to the front pages.

Stories relating to the visit made the front page of three newspa-
pers. Three photographs relating to the visit also appeared in the 
press, two on the cover page and one on the back page. However, cov-
erage of the visit could still be considered poor. For instance, one 
of the highlights of the visit was a presidential forum on HIV/AIDS 
that had President Olusegun Obasanjo as well as governors of some of 
Nigeria?s 36 states and other top political leaders in attendance. 
Surprisingly, coverage of that particular event received scant treat-
ment in the print media. Coverage was limited to brief, 2-paragraph 
mentions in one or two newspapers without any details supplied of the 
issues discussed at the forum. It would appear that organisers of the 
presidential forum did not consciously engage the media for coverage 
of the event. 

Eleven nationally-circulated daily newspapers were monitored during 
the exercise. In all, the newspapers published 101 stories during the 
month. These included 66 news stories, 24 feature articles, 10 opin-
ion articles/interviews and one editorial. 

While the total number of stories published suggest that every paper 
had at least one news item per day during the month, the reality how-
ever is that coverage was concentrated on particular days. Most of 
the publications appeared on the health pages of the newspapers. In 
papers like Post Express and National Interest, both of which publish 
a four-page weekly health pullout, up to two of the pages are devoted 
to HIV/AIDS. 

If what is published on health gages is anything to go by, HIV/AIDS 
definitely had more news coverage than other health issues. In the 
National l Interest newspaper of March 7 for instance, out of the 
four pages on health, up to two pages HIV/AIDS-related stories. The 
Guardian?s science and health page of March 14 also reflected the 
trend in favour of HIV/AIDS with two out of five stories published on 
the page focusing on the epidemic. 

It was noticed that most of items published as feature-length arti-
cles were not products of reporters? individual initiative, but usu-
ally a rehash of news items earlier published and culled stories from 
news agencies or foreign publications. 

One major event in the period under review that should have merited 
more coverage than it got was a seminar on HIV/AIDS in the Nigerian 
military which held in Abuja during the month. Unfortunately, the 
event did not get adequate news mention. Only the Daily Times, Van-
guard and ThisDay had news reports on the conference. It was a con-
ference that should have been given better coverage owing to the se-
curity implications of an HIV epidemic among the nation?s armed 
forces. The poor coverage can be attributed to poor engagement of the 
media by the organisers. 

Newspaper correspondents (reporters based outside the headquarters of 
their media organisations) do not often give detailed coverage to 
special events like conferences, meetings etc. Because they often 
have competing assignments, correspondents usually limit their par-
ticipation at such events to the opening ceremonies, where they ex-
pect invited dignitaries to make newsworthy statements. This situa-
tion explains why many HIV/AIDS news emanating from Abuja, Nigeria?s 
federal capital, get poor coverage in the print media, since most na-
tional newspapers have their offices and printing press in Lagos. 
Suggestions to overcome this could include sponsorship of health re-
porters (usually based in Lagos) to attend these events, or conscious 
engagement of prominent media-based HIV/AIDS organisations to provide 
coverage. 

Focus of coverage is one of the issues this monitoring exercise hopes 
to determine. In March, out of the 101 stories reported, 42 were on 
awareness, 25 on prevention, 22 on treatment and 12 on advocacy. 
Awareness for example refers to stories that focus on activities and 
pronouncements providing information on the virus for the readers. 
However, much as awareness, prevention and treatment are important in 
the campaign against AIDS, what the findings of the monitoring exer-
cise indicate is the need for more advocacy on the rights of People 
Living with AIDS (PLWA). PLWA groups and people and organisations 
working to confront stigma need to speak up more so that the media 
can help in putting an end to HIV-related stigma.
 
There were some stories in the media which addressed the stigma is-
sue. National Interest of March 27 for example had a full page report 
on access to justice for women titled ?Women vs HIV/AIDS: The right 
and access to justice?. This article written by Jones Idikio, a legal 
practitioner, was obviously a paper presented at an earlier workshop, 
a fact not stated in the publication. After a review of various re-
lated cases in other countries, the writer argues that PLWA in Nige-
ria are still capable of exercising their rights whenever they are 
discriminated against.

On March 21, The Guardian carried an editorial, the only one in the 
period under review, titled ?The HIV/AIDS campaign?. The editorial 
reviewed the progress recorded so far in the campaign from the period 
of people hiding behind figures and denying existence of the virus, 
to now when many are owing up. It called for enlightenment programmes 
to warn citizens against dangers of unprotected casual sex, prostitu-
tion and indiscriminate use of unscreened blood. "Strengthening the 
health system and protecting people against a broad range of oppor-
tunistic diseases should be considered a major step in contacting 
(sic) the HIV/AIDS pandemic", the paper stated.

The editorial was very timely; it is commendable that the paper, the 
country's most prestigious national daily found it necessary to write 
on the issue and remind the government and the public on what should 
be done to sustain the battle against the epidemic. Unlike opinion 
articles, editorials carry a lot of weight and influence as they bear 
the media organisation?s informed opinions and are judged as major 
planks of public opinion. 

One of the major goals of this research is to determine the quality 
of the content of the HIV/AIDS coverage in the media. In the month 
under review, there were indications that while the rules guiding the 
appropriate use of language in HIV/AIDS reporting were observed in 
many of the reports, there were still cases of violations. Lack of 
attribution of the sources of some stories and poor identification of 
some of the contributing writers were other lapses noticed in the me-
dia reports. 

For example, in the National Interest of March 27, a story titled 
?HIV/AIDS: A scourge and its many controversies? was replete with 
stigmatizing language that should have been removed or corrected be-
fore publishing, especially since the writer was obviously not a 
staff of the organization. Among such language occurring in the piece 
are words like deadly disease (generally avoid using alarming and de-
scriptive language; AIDS is simply a disease), ?scourge? (the word 
?scourge? which implies that HIV/AIDS cannot be controlled and is de-
served punishment; use instead ?epidemic? or ?pandemic?) and ?vic-
tims? (preferable term: people living with HIV/AIDS). 

Unlike in the past when sensationalism of HIV stories was very common 
in the media, the monitoring for the month of March had only few 
cases of sensationalism. One such case was a story in the Sunday 
Champion of March 23 titled ?HIV victim to lose arm?. The sub-editor 
who cast the headline apparently sought to capitalize on the unveri-
fied claim of the accused, found guilty of stealing under the Sharia 
law, that he was HIV-positive. But for the desire to sensationalize 
the story, it would have sufficed to title the story "Another Sharia 
victim to lose arm". Even if the accused was actually a person living 
with HIV, calling him a victim is another case of stigmatization 
which discourages people living with HIV from openly coming to terms 
wit their status.

The Sunday Tribune of March 24 had another equally disturbing story 
titled ?Animal shares HIV/AIDS drug with human beings?. The headline 
of the story, published in the gossip column of the paper, is clearly 
misleading since what the writer intended was to criticize an un-
proven allegation that antiretroviral drugs being imported into the 
country had not undergone human trials. 

According to the four-paragraph report, the drug(s) believed to have 
been imported from India at the cost of $4 million were only tested 
on rats. Instead of tucking this sensitive story in a gossip column, 
the writer would have acted more responsibly by properly investigat-
ing the story before raising the alarm. If the story turns out to be 
baseless (and the story did not offer any evidence to prove its alle-
gation), Sunday Tribune may have succeeded in publishing rumour as 
fact, and spreading an untruth.

Once in a while, there is a noticeable drought in HIV/AIDS stories. 
For about four days in the month (March 18, 19, 25 and 30), all the 
newspapers had not a single HIV-related story. 
 
Appropriate use of illustrative pictures seems to be a major problem 
with most of the newspapers. Many feature-length stories and were not 
accompanied by illustrative pictures. This is a challenge to communi-
cations staff of NGOs, government agencies etc, to supply the media 
with good, appropriate pictures to accompany coverage of HIV-related 
activities.
 
Use of cartoons is one good way to pass across HIV/AIDS messages in 
the press. The weekly cartoon strip on the back page of the Sunday 
Punch stands out as a good example of this. The cartoon strip titled 
?Let's talk about HIV/AIDS? seeks to educate readers about the epi-
demic and correct popular misconceptions about the disease. The car-
toon strip appears to be an in-house contribution by the paper?s man-
agement and should be commended as a good example of corporate social 
responsibility. 

Overall, in the month under review, the Post Express topped the list 
of published HIV-related stories with a total number of 15, followed 
by The Guardian, ThisDay and Daily Times which had 12 stories each. 
Regrettably, The Punch, touted as the nation's largest circulating 
newspaper, had the least figure of three. 

©Journalists Against AIDS (JAAIDS) Nigeria 2002. Any reproduction of 
this report must be with permission of Journalists Against AIDS 
(JAAIDS) Nigeria.

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