Advocate calls on media in Ethiopia to be more sensitive when reporting on HIV/AIDS

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Apr 18 2008

Media outlets in Ethiopia should be more sensitive when reporting on or about people living with HIV/AIDS because some of the language used has been improper, Sonya De Masi, resident adviser at Internews Network, said on Monday during a media workshop, the Daily Monitor/AllAfrica.com reports.

The workshop was organized by Internews Network in association with its Local Voices Project, which aims to improve and increase coverage of HIV/AIDS in the Ethiopian media. The workshop is training local reporters on how to write articles about HIV/AIDS accurately and in a nonstigmatizing way.

According to Masi, although "the media has so far played [a] vast role in educating the public [about HIV/AIDS], it has also at times hurt the psychology" of people living with the disease in Ethiopia. She added, "The skills required [to report on HIV/AIDS] will be useful in all other fields of reporting, as a large part of the training will focus on nurturing journalism skills" (Tesfaye, Daily Monitor/AllAfrica.com, 4/16).

This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.