BY RICHARD CHIROMBO
Are tragedies like the one involving cyanide-laced Tylenol in the United States of America, which claimed seven lives in 1982 and received front page, top-of-the-news coverage while the issue of HIV and AIDS languished in the agenda-setting media, things of the decades now gone by? Will such experiences as HIV and AIDS news taking four years then, along with 20 000 deaths of citizens who would otherwise have done better with requisite information from journalists, before the media begun to accord coverage to such news merely history in this new era?
The wish is; if only they could be. The reality, however, is different; that is, if you talk about Malawi. While the Southern African country has been hard hit by the HIV and AIDS pandemic, the media has largely played a detached role or, where efforts have been made to highlight the same, the efforts have been but a scratch on the surface. Largely, this has meant covering what other organizations have done in this area, mostly, though, without evidence-based articles as what these organizations say is taken as gospel truth. No verification, whatsoever, whether any organization claiming to have carried out research really did so. What with assertions that some organizations cook research findings!
All the while, over 900,000 people call them innocent citizens, or one-in-seven adults, are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Every six minute, the average time it takes for one to finish an average meal, someone’s sister, brother, mother, father, uncle, aunt, guardian, or step-what, denounce their Malawian citizenship to death. 87,000 deaths occur annually, mostly of productive citizens of the impoverished, sub-Saharan Africa country. And this is according to the National AIDS Commission, a body mandated to coordinate the response- never again say,’ the fight’- to HIV and AIDS in Malawi.
But, just like in the cyanide-laced Tylenol case in the US, the media in Malawi lives in 1982. That might be the reason reporting is still Luke-worm, the response that of migratory birds on recess, and the effects devastating.
No! No! No! No! No! No! No! The mood seemed to say when Malawian journalists, courtesy of Southern Africa HIV/AIDS Information Dissemination Service (Safaids), met from July 15-16 at Mount Soche Hotel, Blantyre, to bring an end to this self-detachment and Luke-worm response to the HIV and AIDS pandemic through a new look organization that is the other word for commitment- Association for Journalists against HIV and AIDS (Ajah). Waving a new banner of commitment that promises to bring change to the way information is treated, these journalists agreed to move away from detachment to partners in development; from passive observers to participants- a form of new war, fought by the mighty pen and unquenched passion. The wall is broken, a new banner unfurled, a new dawn born- even though it may be that we are in the midst of a war the Malawi media never really begun over 25 years ago.
It may not have been of their own making, though, as the pandemic, and information about it, was largely suppressed in terms of impact during the early stages of the pandemic when Malawi was ruled by a doctor of repute in the name of Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda. To say, or write, that there was a pandemic wrecking havoc and threatening to undo social-economic development gains while a doctor sat on the throne would be tantamount to treason, especially in an environment where intellectual discourse was treated as anathema to development and, consequently, muzzled.
But what about 1994, when Malawi ushered in a second Republic and people were free to express themselves. Where had the media been to, drinking free coffee and tea? All these questions might have been answered by the zeal, enthusiasm, commitment, resolve, and passion evident in the faces of the 23 journalists gathered at Mount Soche. No need to live in the past; let’s just draw lessons from it, and start to respond to present health challenges- Tuberculosis, Malaria, Meningitis, pneumonia, high mortality and morbidity rates, among others- including HIV and AIDS, it was unanimously agreed.
The passion that coloured the meeting could not escape the eyes of Tariro Makanga Chikumbirike, Safaids Head of HIV and AIDS Communications and Knowledge Management (Hackm), who applauded Malawian journalists for taking the initiative to, among other things, promote the dissemination of information among fellow practitioners’ promote participation of a wide range of people on issues of HIV and AIDS; and provide the platform for debate as regards the pandemic.
“Journalists cannot be divorced form issues of HIV and AIDS. Additionally, citizens in the sub-Saharan Africa need to know about these issues for them to make informed decisions,” said Chikumbire, her faith so strong in the adage,’ knowledge is power’.
Her main worry was, “We can not reach a comfortable situation if prevalence remains high in our region; if productive citizens continue to die; if the media are mum. All this because HIV and AIDS is not merely a health issue, it is cross-cutting- agriculture, economies, culture, religion, all are affected. Unless we mainstream HIV and AIDS, we will be scratching on infertile ground”, and, then, we shall all be losers.
Losers in the 21st Century? Oh! No! Not with Malawian journalists, anymore. Not with Ajaa! Ask Rex Chikoko, Chairperson for the organization.
“This marks the end of cases, in the past, when media houses presented different facts about the same HIV and AIDS issue; when journalists only interviewed top officials on HIV and AIDS issue; when journalists looking for information had no one-stop-information centre- now we have plans to establish a resource centre where journalists shall get information. This will possibly reduce the visible lack of harmony when it came to HIV and AIDS facts,” said the soft-spoken Chikoko.
He feels that, through this platform, journalists will be able to propagate their agenda-setting role as they reach out to people. The emphasis will be on promoting informed information.
Even Villant Ndasowa, the one who coordinates Safaids programmes in Malawi, feels that a new dawn is here at last; in as far as the media response to the pandemic is concerned in the country of 12 million. Informed journalists are an informed nation, she added.
“Journalists will working together and one of the ways to achieve this will be through publication of a newsletter, which I hope will help a lot in exposing the ills about HIV and AIDS. We also hope that through the committee that has been elected, the media response to the pandemic will be well-coordinated and behavioural-changing,” said Ndasowa.
The committee entrusted with running the affairs of Ajaa is comprised of journalists from both sides of the media divide: print and media. These are: Rex Chikoko, Chairperson; Villant Ndasowa, Vice Chair; Everson Kalinda, Secretary; Richard Chirombo, Treasure; Vuto Zamadunga; Geoffrey Kapusa, member; Dorothy Kachitsa, member; Edith Mkwaila, member; and Henry Haukeya, member.
They come from the following media houses, or organizations: Malawi News; First Wave Media; Ministry of Information; Mawa; Malawi Television; Malawi Broadcasting Corporation, and Joy radio, respectively.
They will be expected to put into gear the two factors that, research in the US has revealed, often put an issue on the national agenda: make sure that HIV and AIDS news appear on the front page, and; that the State President gives a talk about the issue raised during his various national tours of duty. These will put to rest what happened in one of the countries to first register cases of HIV and AIDS: a news article did not appear on the front page of The New York Times until May 25, 1983- two years into the pandemic, 12 months less than The Los Angeles Times, and 10 months later than The Washington Post. Even so, American President Ronald Reagan did not give a speech about AIDS until May 1987, an unbelievable six years into the epidemic, at a time when 35,121 cases had been reported by the Centre for Disease Control.
From this experience, Ajaa really has to work hard to make sure that, in the end, either president Bingu wa Mutharika talks about an issue raised by the organization as, an agenda-setter, or the little HIV virus grows big enough to appear on the big newspaper/magazine/newsletter print. Perhaps loud enough and visible enough to make the mark on the mighty microphone and screen.
Passion. Is the buzz word. And everything becomes possible with Association for Journalists against HIV and AIDS.
A new baby is born. Azimayi kodi mulipo: nthungululu bwaaa!!!
