Internews publications in AIDSlink newspaper...
Internews trainings in Mekong in reporting effectively on HIV/AIDS, journalists learnt how to write stories that contain significantly fewer stigmatizing words and phrases.
One of the stories is "By For and About Positive People" by Cheng Siv. Cheng says "I hope more positive people will become journalists, and the relationship between journalists and positive people will intertwine. Our press needs to draw more attention to HIV/AIDS for the sake of its people, especially those who live in the remote areas and are increasingly affected by Cambodia’s AIDS epidemic."
Mia Malan says in her publication "Journalists and HIV Advocates - Searching for the Right Words": "Journalists argue sensibly that every story and country is different and there should not be one set of ‘rules’ for all AIDS-related stories... The latest list of the UNAIDS Terminology Guidelines contains 14 pages of terms that reporters are often expected to use – many of them politically correct NGO phrases such as “opportunistic infections” and “client-initiated testing."
One of the recommendations is that people with HIV should never be referred to as “AIDS patients,” as many are able to live long and healthy lives and are, therefore, not “patients.”
Read these two articles in Global AIDSLing,#104 , July/Aug.2007:
