KHOPOTSO: With the exception of a well-known Johannesburg daily columnist, Hayden Horner is one of a few journalists in Africa and beyond to have publicly disclosed his HIV status. Horner is a journalist for Plus News, a United Nations’€™ e-mail and internet-based HIV/AIDS information service for sub-Saharan Africa. Not only does he report on HIV and AIDS issues as they affect others, he also writes a monthly online column or a ‘€œblog’€. But he prefers to call it a diary, Hayden’€™s Diary, on his personal experiences with HIV.

HAYDEN HORNER:   Strangely enough this was my argument with my editor when we decided to embark on the diary as it’€™s now called. I think a diary because I’€™m being as honest with the recording of my experiences as I would be had it been my own personal journal. So, it’€™s easier for me to start off by saying: ‘€œDear Diary’€. It already takes me to that personal level. I’€™m completely shut down and it’€™s as if I’€™m in my own bedroom or lounge writing down my personal experiences. The implications of my personal life actually going out there mean very little to me at the time, so long as it yields the expected results.

KHOPOTSO: I asked Hayden what prompted him to start a diary in public.

HAYDEN HORNER:  I felt that while a certain amount of education was being made available to the general public people are able to easily relate to somebody’€™s personal experience with the virus’€¦ My diary deals with a number of issues from the pros and the cons of internet sex, which is also very convenient for somebody living with the virus to the myth that raping an infant can cure of HIV and AIDS to the abuse of women and how HIV and AIDS has been feminised in this way. I’€™m trying to bring out the issues that the general education on HIV and AIDS overlooks.

KHOPOTSO: With a personal journal there are no limits. But if your diary is open to the public there could well be a need to restrict what one says. In this month’€™s entry Hayden writes about a subject you might not want to hear about if you’€™re just about to have breakfast: AIDS-related gastrointestinal distress ‘€“ a fancy expression that refers to farting.

HAYDEN HORNER: My diary, I’€™d like to think is an excuse for me to bring across the brutality of the disease. Admittedly, I do tend to get carried away in my frankness of the entries that are submitted to the diary. But HIV/AIDS knows no censorship.

I think the diary is important in that sense. It’€™s saying: ‘€œThis is the brutality of the disease, but it’€™s still OK to speak about it’€.  

KHOPOTSO: Now that anti-AIDS drugs are available in the public health sector it doesn’€™t mean that the fight against HIV is over. Hayden believes that the challenge for the media today is to encourage disclosure. He says responses to his diary have ranged from people commenting that he’€™s ‘€œcourageous,’€ ‘€œstupid’€ and ‘€œtaking a risk’€. However, he is determined not to allow some of the negative comments to become a stumbling block to his writing and his effort to get people talking about HIV and AIDS.      

HAYDEN HORNER: There is this notion that HIV/AIDS fatigue exists within the media. But I don’€™t think that we can actually allow ourselves to be as selfish as succumb to this so-called fatigue. As long as people are dying and as long as HIV/AIDS has the impact that it does it’€™s important for us to keep reporting. When I hear, as a journalist, that the disease is no longer claiming lives, then I will sigh a great sigh of relief. I will relax and allow that fatigue to take over.    

KHOPOTSO: Do you see yourself as a role model perhaps, in an industry where people do not talk about themselves being at risk, or themselves being infected or themselves being affected?

HAYDEN HORNER: Not so much a role model. Maybe just as somebody who’€™s saying it’€™s OK to speak about it. It’€™s OK to come out. It’€™s OK to de-stigmatise the disease. To lend it a human face ‘€“ to humanise it. Ja, I’€™d like to think of it that way.      

Click here to view Hayden’s diary.

e-mail: Khopotso Bodibe