AIDS in the Media

by Hawlan Ng

Browse the newspapers for recent articles about AIDS and you might get the impression that the epidemic is no longer a cause for concern. Headlines that spotlight HIV are few and features about the virus rarely make the front page. Yet the virus is silently but steadily destroying societies in Asia and Africa, and many experts believe that an increase in HIV-related mortality will occur in the United States as well.

"More people die from HIV in sub–Saharan Africa in a minute than die from the fighting in Kosovo in a month," says Laurie Garrett, Newsday reporter and Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Coming Plague. "But the slowing down of AIDS reporting in the United States and abroad has eliminated all sense of urgency in the public, in politicians, and in communities."

Early this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that AIDS-related deaths have increased to such a degree that AIDS now ranks as the world’s deadliest infectious disease.

"And where did the Boston Globe put the story?" asks retired Globe editorial page editor Loretta McLaughlin of the 113-word AP wire story "Alarm on Extent of AIDS" that appeared this past May in the newspaper. "On the back page."

Does complacency alone account for the decrease in coverage of the HIV epidemic? McLaughlin notes that because HIV is a silent killer that often resides in the body for years without causing symptoms, the deaths that result from infection with the virus do not have much dramatic appeal. "Sometimes it seems we won’t have the full amount of coverage on AIDS until people are literally dropping dead in the streets," she says.

From Rare Cancer to Household Term
The first news story about what would become known as AIDS appeared in a major U.S. newspaper in July 1981. This article in the New York Times focused on eight deaths from a "rare cancer" that had occurred in a two-year period. Initially, the syndrome was termed GRID, for "gay-related immunodeficiency," as it was believed to be confined to gay men. The wholesale inaccuracy of that designation soon became apparent to medical professionals. Within two years of the New York Times’ article, reporters covering the story were using the prevailing medical term: AIDS.

In 1985 Rock Hudson’s death from AIDS made headlines around the world. Although the actor’s death had a profound effect on AIDS awareness in the United States and Europe, it was Magic Johnson’s announcement in 1991 that he was HIV positive that jarred the world. The infection of this sports celebrity, and his subsequent retirement from professional basketball, resulted in an unprecedented volume of AIDS coverage by media in developed and developing countries.

Rosy Optimism Colors News Coverage
Research on new drug therapies that seemed to prolong the lives of some HIV patients was introduced at the XI International Conference on AIDS held in Vancouver in 1996. Although the rates of HIV infections continued to shoot upward, media coverage focused on emerging optimism about the virus. In November 1996 the New York Times Magazine printed an article entitled "The End of AIDS: The Twilight of an Epidemic," that expressed further hope in the new drugs. The following month, Time named David Ho its Man of the Year for his research on the new treatments called HAART (Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy).

George Strait, former medical correspondent for ABC News, attended the conference in Vancouver. Strait recalls that reporters were initially skeptical about the new drugs, thinking they were just another antiretroviral like ZDV (zidovudine). "But the drug companies were very vocal, beating the drum and deeming the drugs were ‘the answer to AIDS.’ So the message went out in the press that they were indeed the answer."

Like Garrett and McLaughlin, Strait has noticed a decrease in the attention the media are giving to AIDS. "Editors nowadays basically tell us to come back with an AIDS story when we have a cure," he says. "There is a perception that people are tired of AIDS, and the media want to report on something new."

Silence and Complacency
Some feel that mainstream media have prematurely declared an end to the crisis. "The coverage of AIDS reflects the pressure editors are under to garner headlines that often are without substance," says Mario Cooper, founder of Leading for Life, a national campaign launched by the Harvard AIDS Institute to raise HIV awareness among African American and Latino leaders. "Stories focus on the drop in deaths and ignore the steady increase in infections and the failing reactions to the HAART drugs. There is no appreciation for how radically the virus has changed. The media treat AIDS like they would a sports game, proclaiming victory and making people think there’s been a cure, when nothing could be further from the truth."

Cooper adds that coverage has ignored the growing crisis in communities of color. "AIDS is ravaging African American and Latino communities but still the focus has remained on how HAART drugs have worked for a fortunate few. The number of infections is increasing dramatically in communities of color, and yet the focus tends to be on how AIDS is supposedly letting up in the gay community."

The media’s avoidance of stories that spotlight the epidemic in communities of color is part of a greater problem that Strait characterizes as the media’s bias against stories that deal with people in the developing world. He has covered the AIDS epidemic since the early 1980s and has reported on the epidemic in central Africa but notes that although "people are still dying in tragically large numbers, it’s not seen as news anymore."

Complacency and silence also result because governments of developing nations focus on attracting investors to fund economic initiatives rather than medical needs. "There is a conflict between economic advancement and medical realities," McLaughlin notes. "South Africa may have a 20 to 30 percent HIV infection rate, but when the government there is also trying to attract new business, the HIV rate is not something it wants to advertise."

Garrett says that even some in the HIV community are perpetuating the myth that the AIDS crisis is over. "I don’t think journalists should take all the blame. They are being told by some in the community that everything is okay, so that is what’s going to be written."

Attempts to put AIDS in the same category as other chronic illnesses such as cancers invite further danger, says Garrett. "If AIDS organizations are trying to normalize AIDS and make it into just another disease, then it will become like Alzheimer’s disease in the eyes of the media. Reporting will be rare and coverage will just focus on the fine-tuning of new developments. In many cases, it seems the coverage of HIV is falling into that pattern."

Garrett wrote the cover story, "The Virus at the End of the World," for the March 1999 issue of Esquire magazine. "I wanted to give the opposite perspective from the ding-dong ‘AIDS is over’ trend that is going on these days," she says. "People need to be reminded that the HAART drugs are still just an experiment."

Garrett suggests that it is only necessary to look back at recent history to learn enough to avoid repeating it. "I just don’t understand how we can keep making the same mistakes we have made with previous epidemics," she says. "People think that AIDS is isolated in the Southern Hemisphere, that it’s ‘their problem,’ but we live in a world with a global economy and people are more mobile than ever. If anything, the new subtypes that are being found in Africa could move throughout the world’s populations even faster than the ‘original’ subtypes."
Cooper stresses that public health professionals, government leaders, and local activists must continue to educate people about prevention and risk.

"We have to remain diligent about getting the facts out by targeting local media and arming local activists with information and strategies for increasing local coverage.," he says. "Whether it’s Mobile, Alabama or New York City, people need to go to their local papers with reports and graphs about the local epidemiology."

—Hawlan Ng is a contributing writer to the Harvard AIDS Review.