Part 2 of the South African Demographic and Health Survey.

Speaker’s notes for Centre for the Study of AIDS forum, 2004. Kerry Cullinan. Discussion about the role of the media in reporting on HIV/AIDS, particularly stigma and denial, tends to rest on two popular assumptions: 1. That the media has a major role to play in reducing AIDS stigma and denial, and that it is obliged to do so. 2. Once people know how HIV is transmitted, they will change their sexual behaviour (“health belief model”).

This booklet was compiled several years ago by Soul City, the Department of Health and Health-e. Some of the chapters such as the contact details are outdated. However, issues such as Ethics and Media are still relevant and may be especially useful for journalism students.

Idasa and the Journalism Department at the University of Stellenbosch held a workshop for community journalists, tackling the issue of Governance and HIV/AIDS. Health-e journalist Anso Thom spoke to the participants.

Government committed itself to having 53 000 people on antiretrovirals (ARVs) by the end of 2004. What are the challenges government faces in rolling out? What is the hold up? Is government dragging its feet, is there a lack of political will or are there real problems with implementation? And what role do the media have to play in all of this? The HIV/AIDS and the Media Project and the Journalism Department at the University of Stellenbosch hosted a panel discussion addressing these very questions. Anso Thom was one of the panellists.

Kerry Cullinan delivered a paper at the Narrative Journalism Conference hosted by the Nieman Foundation and the Wits Journalism School.