JAAIDS Media Monitoring Service October 2006.

April 5, 2007 :: O'Femi Kolawole,Lagos Journalists Against AIDS(JAAIDS)Nigeria

Double Trouble: Living with HIV with no means of
sustainable income

With the state of the economy where about half of the
country’s population live on less than $1 a day, many
Nigerians, including a great number of people living
with HIV/AIDS, are finding it difficult to feed. The
case of many PLWH is made even more complicated by the
fact that they have no steady jobs from which they get
sustainable income. This very important issue formed
the crux of the story of Tell magazine on page 72 of
its October2 edition titled ‘Double Trouble’.

The two page feature report tells the different
stories of PLWH who have no jobs, and thus have
challenges with their welfare and visiting treatment
centres for their drugs. Many PLWH often lose their
jobs and find it hard to make ends meet. They also
hardly have money to carry out tests when necessary.
The inclusion of the voices of PLWH, the viewpoints
offered by AIDS experts interviewed in the story, the
use of relevant illustrations and statistics to drive
home this point, as well as the  actual presentation
style all combine to set the TELL story apart from
others in the month.

The total number of stories published in the month was
220. Of these, 151 were news stories, 31 were features
stores while 19 were opinion articles. Six were
interviews; two were editorials, while five cartoons
and six advertorials were published.

Vanguard led with 32, followed by National Mirror with
22 and The Nation with 20.

Vanguard and Champion published the two editorials in
the month. While Vanguard’s was published October 7
(Death of HIV/AIDS Crusader), Champion published on
October 18(For Omololu Falobi).

Both focused on Omololu Falobi, the Founder/Executive
Director of Journalists Against AIDS (JAAIDS) Nigeria,
who was killed on October 5, 2006 by men of the
underworld while on his way home from a speaking
engagement where he had gone to address young
entrepreneurs on the importance of social
responsibility.

The papers challenged civil society and advocacy
groups in the HIV/AIDS community to continue the
relentless struggle which Omololu waged against the
epidemic during his short but very eventful life. In
addition, Vanguard also tasked the government to stem
the increasing tide of insecurity of lives and
property in the country.

Perhaps due to the inability of the Nigeria Police to
find the killers of prominent individuals who have
been assassinated in the recent past in the country,
none of the papers called for the Police to find
Omololu’s killers. But it is better if the media
follows up the case as well as others so that the
families of the departed would at least have the
comfort that the killers of their loved ones are being
brought to justice. As a foremost journalist and media
trainer, it is not surprising that stories and
tributes over Omololu’s death and burial were awash in
many of the papers monitored.

In a story published by Business Day on October 18
titled “US disqualifies AIDS patients from visa
lottery’, a consular officer at the US Consulate, Amy
Lillis was said to have explained that even if PLWHs
win the annual American Diversity Visa Lottery, they
will be stopped from processing their documents for
emigration. 

While the US government is undeniably one of the
highest spenders on HIV/AIDS globally, it remains a
puzzle why the country and its organs would still be
putting in place policies that are outrightly
discriminative against people living with HIV and
AIDS.

True, embassies have the right to issue or deny visas
on certain conditions. But this argument of denying
PLWHs who win the visa lottery entrance into the
country despite what they can offer, is an advocacy
point which civil society groups on HIV/AIDS and the
media must not fail to take up. It is a draw back in
the efforts to stem HIV-related stigma and
discrimination.

Although not totally focused on HIV/AIDS, ‘New Face of
an Old Trade’, a three page feature report published
in the Daily Independent on October 28 also stands
out. The story is about the worrisome trend of
prostitution in many of the nation’s tertiary
institution despite the prevalence of the HIV/AIDS
epidemic.

New styles, according to the report, are being
introduced to remould the old trade.  National Mirror
and The Sun had similar reports on October 7 and Oct
29. The respective headlines were ‘Nigerian Housewives
involved in Prostitution Abroad’ and ‘Agony of a girl
Prostitute’. The stories aptly expose the need for
more HIV/AIDS intervention activities among commercial
sex workers.

Some journalists and copy editors need to improve
their art if ‘HIV victims seeks infected spouse’, a
story in page 32 of the National Mirror on October 12
is anything to go by.

Although the story is about young HIV positive men and
women who are hoping to end isolation and
discrimination by marrying one another in India, the
relationship between the photograph published with the
story remains a question. The fact that it was not
captioned also made it worse. Moreover, people living
with HIV are not ‘HIV victims’.

Reading through New Age’s October 25 news story titled
‘PLWHAs warned against use of AR drugs’, the reader is
likely to be confused over what the intent of the
story is all about. Is it to discourage PLWH from
enlisting in the free ARV treatment programme of the
government, or for PLWH to stop self-medication and
perhaps for government to make the drugs more
accessible to those who need it?

This is because in the first paragraph, the official
who was quoted in the report, Dr. Uche Enyinnaya,
programme manager in the Abia State HIV/AIDS Programme
Development Project was said to have warned PLWH from
the use of anti-retroviral drugs as it is toxic and
dangerous when taken as self medication.

However, in the next paragraph, the same man was said
to have opined that the federal government should, as
a matter of urgency, make the drugs more accessible to
the infected persons and supplement its high cost.

This obvious contradiction only leaves the reader
confused and wondering if the reporter actually
understands what the official really said. This is the
more reason why copy editors need to scrutinize
stories submitted by reporters instead of just passing
them on for production.

With the worrisome claims of some doctors who peddle
cures for HIV/AIDS through adverts in the media, Daily
Sun’s story on October 31 offers a cheering news if it
is implemented. “FG vows to prosecute fake HIV/AIDS
cure doctors, others’ was the headline.

The media must help put this issue in the front burner
so that concrete steps could be taken by the
government towards enforcing the announcement.
Moreover, media owners must also be socially
responsible by not advertising bogus claims without
any verification which could force many PLWH desperate
for a cure to patronize these harmful drugs and
thereby suffer untold damages to their internal
organs.

Other outstanding stories in the month include
‘Laboratories are compounding HIV/AIDS Prevention
Programes, Guardian, October 22, page 49, ‘For NACA,
it’s time to look after the disabled’, The Nation,
October 10, page 36 and ‘How I contracted HIV/AIDS
with N20” published in Tribune on October 13.  A
controversial one was ‘Condom for all will lead to sex
for all and eventually HIV/AIDS for all, says expert’
published in The Sun on October 30.

There was generally less use of inappropriate use of
words in stories and in headlines in the month except
for This Day’s cover front page story on October 19
titled ‘HIV/AIDS: Nigeria 3rd highest infested
country’.

The story was the only AIDS report that made
the cover page in the papers monitored. ‘Infected
would have been a better substituted for ‘infested’ in
the headline since what is being discussed are not
insects or animals. Still on This Day, the headline of
its story on October 24 ‘HIV/AIDS Victim gets
pseudonym for Prosecution’ could have been adjusted so
the ‘victim’ is removed since it is a stigmatizing
description.
 
Overall, the papers reviewed in the month showed that
diversity of topics/issues relating to HIV/AIDS are
continuously being addressed by the Nigerian media.
There is therefore no disputing the fact that Nigerian
news organizations really understand that if HIV/AIDS
is not in the media, it could as well not exist for
communities to rely on them for information.
 
News papers monitored in the month are:
Business Day, Champion, Daily Independent, Daily
Trust, Guardian, National Mirror, New Age, Sun, Punch,
This Day, Tribune, The Nation and Vanguard

News magazines monitored in the month are:
Tell, The Week, The News, Insider, Newswatch, Encomium
and City People