Guiding Principles for Ethical Reporting of HIV and AIDS and Gender

The Guiding Principles for Ethical Reporting on HIV and AIDS & Gender have been developed as part of the Southern African Media Action Plan on HIV and AIDS and Gender (MAP) that brings together a partnership between the media industry, civil society, and the international community to improve the quality of media reporting on HIV and AIDS and gender, and to mitigate the impact of the epidemic on the media industry in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.

The document states that HIV and AIDS is an issue of critical importance that journalists should cover using imagination, initiative, and sensitivity to gender and the larger social forces driving the epidemic.

HIV/AIDS, as stated here, requires reporting of the highest ethical standards; and the document outlines some of the key considerations when reporting on HIV/AIDS. These include clarity, balanced reporting, and ensuring that the voices and concerns of people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS are heard, but at the same time considering the issues of informed consent and the protection of the rights and safety of individuals and, especially, of children.

The Southern African Editors’ Forum (SAEF) and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) endorsed these principles to provide guidance to media councils, training institutions, and media companies, as well as individual editors and journalists. The principles, as formulated by SAEF and MISA, should "not [be] cast in stone but should be revised over time and in response to the unfolding epidemic."

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