Media Watch
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No one can truly be free until all women are really free
Two weeks ago, we witnessed an incident that has violated our national psyche, which was reported across the world. The incident has forced some introspection among South Africans and people abroad about the state of the national psyche.IN THE NEWS: Raped while looking for help!
The Schoolgirl's family took her to hospital because she became very depressed after testing positive for HIV. But instead of getting better in the psychiatric ward, she was raped in December! And a young male nurse is allegedly the evil culprit.ANALYSIS: Daily Sun’s shock & horror slant leads to re-stigmatisation
The Daily Sun’s prioritisation of HIV-related stories is once again in evidence given last week Friday’s (2 March 2012) blaring front page headline, “AIDS pastor raped me!”. But the tabloid’s penchant for slanting stories towards shock has produced a stigmatising and unproductive HIV-related story.ANALYSIS: The good & the bad: Reporting on rape
An article in last week’s Saturday Star (11 February 2012) highlights the often-neglected issue of HIV as it relates to rape, but missteps in continuously referring to survivors of sexual assault and rape as “victims”.
Reporting on rape and sexual violence is tricky and journalists often fall foul of the many challenges presented by this sensitive subject.
One of the most common mistakes that journalists make is gratuitously probing into the horror aspect of the crime itself, without investigating the causes of rape and the procedures involved in reporting sexual violence and recovering from it.
Articles on forced jabs choose sensation over information
Reports of contraceptive injections administered to girls as young as 10 at a primary school in Port Elizabeth, have raised a dull hum throughout the news media.
However reports leave questions around rape and HIV and HIV prevention in general unaddressed.
Sundry articles have also reported that girls at a Port Elizabeth primary school were given the contraceptive injections without their parents consent. The articles have also chosen to focus on the fact that the girls were told that the injections would prevent unwanted pregnancy if they were raped.
While shocking and sensational details such as these are common media fodder, they are often the sole focus, leaving other pertinent questions unaddressed. Specifically questions around whether or not messages about HIV prevention were communicated to the girls are left unconsidered.
TNA ticks all the boxes
A featured article in The New Age (TNA) uncovers the SA prisons system’s secret scourge. Choruses of assenting and dissenting voices, broaching all aspects of the matter allow for an informative and balanced article.
The article opens by recounting one young man witnessing the rape of another in a Durban prison. This ‘hook’ not only draws the reader in through holding off on the hard facts but humanises the prisoner, successfully bringing a society’s cast offs into the public consciousness as living breathing human beings who are capable of pity and fear.
Through the narrative device the article clearly communicates that male rape is wrong because it represents the violation of a living, breathing and feeling human being. But in providing the context of HIV, the writer shows that sexual assault in prisons gains an added dimension as a deadly biological threat which extends beyond prison walls.
Prevention in the prison petri dish
The New Age (TNA) has reported that Leeuwkop prison now has a clinic, which provides HIV counseling and testing, antiretroviral treatment (ARV) and monitoring, as well as other primary healthcare services.
Previously prisoners had to travel long distances to access these services and collect their treatment. Given that HIV prevalence among South Africa’s prison population is standing at roughly 40%, the prospect of more readily available treatment certainly is good news.
But as the adage goes, prevention is always better than cure – a truism the prison system might be overlooking.
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