International: Reporting the global story of AIDS
Yesterday's News?
HIV and the media
It is widely acknowledged that the media has a crucial role to play in the battle against AIDS. But how exactly do we go about doing this? Panos Features editor Dipankar de Sarkar argues that journalists and editors must seize ownership of the 'AIDS story', and approach it with greater Professionalism by highlighting the voices of those who are affected.


There's a story told of a veteran Canadian newspaper editor, who, after putting the paper to bed, would gather his editors round in the newsroom. “All right, boys and girls,” he would say. “What really happened in the world today?”

This is not an apocryphal tale (it happens to be true). For what really happened out there – as opposed to what we are told happened or what we are conditioned to discard among the things that happened – has always been a key question for the media. It's one that all of us in the media should strive to answer every day of our lives.

Of course we don't know everything that happened – who could – but we do know of one story that broke in the last 24 hours. Just over 8,000 people died of AIDS, the overwhelming majority of them in the developing world.

Few of those who died would have had access to any of the exotic anti-retroviral drugs that have made HIV/AIDS such a manageable condition in the wealthy countries of the West. They would have died miserable deaths, many in countries where the majority live on incomes of less than a dollar a day – without a decent meal or clean water.



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Bakersfield Fire Department Employees File Civil Suits Against City of Bakersfield and Bakersfield Fire Department Chief

BAKERSFIELD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 9, 2004--Robert Pratt and Rachelle Scudder filed individual complaints for damages yesterday in Bakersfield Superior Court against the City of Bakersfield for wrongful suspension, retaliation, harassment, conspiracy and defamation. Bakersfield Fire Department members were also named as defendants, including Chief Ron Fraze, Deputy Chief Gary Hutton, Captain Brian Perry, Human Resources Supervisor Anthony Gonzales, Investigator Edward Watts, and Captain John Webber.

.Although the Plaintiffs provided overwhelming evidence that accusations that they had oral copulation at work were false, they were still reprimanded and demoted, denied promotion, and their wages decreased.