3 articles on the Health Reporting Conference
Where is Health Reporting in the region?
A Health Reporting Conference under the theme “Opening up New Possibilities through Dialogue”, took place from the 10th to the 11th of May in Johannesburg, South Africa. Organised by Wits University and Africa Media Assignments the conference sought to find out the state of health reporting in South Africa. Although the conference was for South African journalists, the issues that came out of it are of importance to all journalists south of the Sahara as the issues are the same across the region.
While there has generally been a lot of improvement in the covering of health issues in the region by both electronic and print media, with almost every newspaper or news bulletin having one health story, especially on HIV and AIDS, per copy or edition, there are still many issues that need to be addressed.
Experts attending the conference, such as the Wits School of Journalism, the Media Monitoring Project and editors of big media houses like IRIN PlusNews, said it was important for the media to continuously work on their reporting skills so that they can become effective communicators.
Below are some of the key questions that all journalists ought to ask themselves:
* Do you rely heavily on copy provided by experts? This includes Government communication, press releases and research findings.
* If so, have you asked yourself what your experts are experts on, and whether their expertise will be of relevance to your writing and to your audience?
* Are you the type that just gets a research paper from an expert and goes to bed with the story?
* Are we as journalists doing our own research?
* Are Internet sources always correct?
* Are you looking for underlying issues and values out of the stories that you come across? For instance, if the story is that the public health sector is crumbling, have you ever looked at why this is so?
* It seems that the private health sector is always good - no queues, and prompt and efficient service – have you ever wondered why?
Don’t you think looking at all these issues would make good reading while at the same time educating and lobbying for change and action in crucial sectors?
* How much attention are you giving to educating your audience in your story?
* Is there any educational content?
* As journalists, it is of crucial importance for us to ask ourselves what we aim to achieve with the stories we cover and the way we cover them - for example that good piece of journalism where one gets someone living with HIV or cancer to open up and speak about his or her life.
* Does it seek to establish how many sexual partners the source had before they realised they were infected? If so, do you seek to educate your readers on the dangers of having too many sexual partners, or do you aim to show that this person, your “source”, deserves to be infected because they have been careless?
* What is the underlying motive of your story?
* Is it to inform, educate or entertain?
* Is it to sensationalise to push up sales or push up sales and inform at the same time?
If, as journalists, we ask those key questions we will come up with better stories
Some fertile ground for news this week includes: looking at the public health sector: what is going on it in your respective country and area? How many resources is your government putting into the health sector? Perhaps the private sector or civil society is supporting the health sector in some way?
Courtesy of www.safaids.org.zw
How journalists should work with scientists in health reporting
RECENTLY I was one of the delegates at a health-care media seminar. It was sponsored by Medscheme and supported by Africa Media Assignments, Perinatal HIV/Aids Research Unit (PHRU) and the Wits HIV/Aids and the Media Project.
What fascinated me about the exchange was the level at which scientists and journalists found it difficult to speak the same language about health issues, particularly HIV/Aids.
Often these two groups were suspicious of each other. Kanyi Ndaki, a health reporter, described it as "mistrust between the scientific community and journalists".
She said journalists found it difficult to deal with people who did not trust and respect them. She, however, accepted that journalists had a problem in understanding science. This resulted in overstating and dumbing-down statistics and figures.
Although there are several health issues that affect us, one that we cannot escape mentioning is HIV/Aids. In retrospect, HIV/Aids in the media has been portrayed as a "killer". Messages on TV, radio, print and other forms of media "scared the audience off".
Rachel Jewekes, director the Medical Research Council’s Gender and Health Unit and one of the panellists in the exchange, observed a situation where the media focused on portraying those infected as innocent victims leading to stigmatisation.
The linking of HIV/Aids to a horrible death has made those infected resist rather than accept their status, she said. This encouraged denial, limiting testing and support for those infected.
Jewekes said that reporting on HIV/Aids had led to the dissemination of harmful myths such as virgin cleansing and rape (the infected believing they would be cured of HIV/Aids if the raped a virgin) including baby rape. This area of reporting (rape) has been uncritical. There is very little educational component in such reporting.
The idea of baby rape, she added, had been repeated several times in the media perpetrating the myth. She urged journalists to take clear responsibility in what they reported.
Increasingly examples of good reporting involved the use of various sources and angles, including educational angles and what she called "social value-based journalism" which presented ways in which people could make real meaning of Aids in their lives.
Problems in reporting often lie in accuracy in statistics and media accuracy. Journalists should have a critical reflection of their sources of information (mainly scientists).
They should be health experts and act as social leaders in HIV/Aids and other health issues. They should challenge attitudes and values through rigorous fact-checking, and searching for underlying issues rather than attention-grabbing parts of a story.
Marietje Myburg, the regional co-ordinator (communication) in the Governance and Aids Programme, talked about "what journalists need to know from science to enable them to tell citizens what they need to know".
This was a situation where journalists hold scientists responsible to give citizens power to know.
They should not simplify what was complicated and not complicate what was simple.
Reporting on science required honesty, she said. Journalists should ask if they were sure about what they wrote.
They should know the extent to which the story accommodated the experience of strangers.
As far as journalism was concerned, this was a tall order indeed. Journalists could try to include all the recommendations discussed above when reporting, particularly on HIV/Aids. But it did not necessary mean that their reporting would lead to behavioural changes.
Dr Soul Johnson, managing director of Health Development Africa, suggested that enforcing certain standards on reporting (by law) and the way advertising presented issues of national importance. However, he added that people’s perceptions of social norms influenced how other people behaved. HIV/Aids, being a complex issue, a simple media intervention or reporting could hardly address such a complexity.
HIV/Aids involved issues of gender relations – perceived societal cultural norms and traditions and how to overcome such issues were beyond the ability of a media intervention. Johnson suggested a solution through ethical standards in reporting by giving a story a human face.
In the case of HIV/Aids, then, it should have some information on how to cope. Journalists can work with scientists in the science of health if they are expected to be active participants in the process - Fredrick Ogenga.
Health journo’s fall short of the mark
Journalists reporting on health matters needed to know their territory to avoid being influenced by power politics and biased scientists, according to a speaker at a recent conference on health reporting.
The HIV AIDS and the Media Project, a partnership between the Wits Journalism department and the Perinatal HIV Research Unit, and Africa Media Assignments hosted the conference last week on Thursday at Hacklebrooke Conference Centre in Craighall Park.
Speakers said health journalists were at a loss when it came to reporting on science and statistics.
Former Rand Daily Mail and Business Day health reporter Pat Sidley said reporters should learn the territory, in order to avoid being influenced by power politics and biased scientists. She said that patients would be able to manage disease better if journalists were more efficient in their communication with the public.
Claire Keeton, the Sunday Times health reporter, said that health journalists had a huge responsibility to put out accurate information regarding health matters.
She described her struggle to make health reporting more attractive, and detailed examples of how the Sunday Times failed to prioritise health reporting. She said that there was a need to interrogate, probe and challenge the government so that health reporting did not occur merely on a superficial level. She encouraged the media to promote more campaigns such as the Sunday Times "Everyone Knows Somebody" endeavour to create more awareness about the HIV pandemic.
Dr Rachel Jewkes, Director of the Gender and Health unit at the Medical Research Council and a regular contributor to the media, said that the form of health reporting in South Africa and the world over had lead to unhealthy reverence for medical experts’ opinions. She said that journalists should be critical and diverse in their reporting, and should avoid sensationalism and rather concentrate on the underlying issues and values. She made mention of how AIDS reporting contributed to stigma in the initial phase of the epidemic. She said that the role of health journalists should be to put health on the agenda of the public.
It was agreed that health reporters should reflect on social justice values and should be trained in health politics and economics. They should hold the government and the medical profession accountable to the patient.
Speakers at the conference included senior Wits ethics and law lecturer Franz Kruger and Wits PhD fellow Natalie Ridgard - Mohammed Ravat.