Training Journalists to Report on HIV/AIDS: Final Evaluation of a Global Program

This 56-page report evaluates Local Voices, an initiative launched in 2002 by the United States (US)-based Internews Network to train journalists in developing countries how to improve and expand their coverage of HIV/AIDS. A sister organisation, Internews Europe, began a similar project called Turnaround Time in 2004. Internews Network has focused on 3 African countries and India, and received backing from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and also the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). In contrast, Internews Europe with support from the United Kingdom (UK)'s Department for International Development (DFID), launched a regional programme in the Mekong that primarily trained Vietnamese and Cambodian journalists.

As detailed here, the Local Voices model introduces journalists to the programme through an intensive 5- to 7-day workshop that focuses on their medium (print, radio, or television) and then attempts to build long-term mentoring relationships with trainees by frequently contacting them and inviting them to advanced workshops and roundtables. Seventy percent of the content of the workshops focuses on the development of journalism skills and 30% on HIV/AIDS (or other health-related) knowledge. Training workshops are carried out in groups of no more than 12 journalists from the same medium and emphasise the practical application of newly learned skills. Radio trainees learn how to write good scripts, edit and record sound, and produce features with a human face. Television journalists learn how to direct camera people, shoot video, edit, and write script to images. The training teaches print journalists how to structure features and write well. Two sites have also done training of photojournalists. Workshops focus on themes such as HIV testing, the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) and anti-retroviral treatment. Each workshop includes a visit to an HIV/AIDS-related site and provides journalists with the opportunity to interview people living with HIV (PLHIV). Local experts from AIDS commissions or relevant implementing agencies participate in the trainings, providing content and expert contacts. Each trainee leaves the workshop with a story or image that is ready to be broadcast or published.

Local Voices has also provided trainees with Media Resource Centers (MRCs). These "parallel newsrooms" offer free phones and internet, recording studios, equipment loans, and access to production and editing assistance. In addition, senior international health journalists assist trainees with story development and script writing, much like an editor would. Regular roundtables also serve to update journalists and editors on key HIV/AIDS or other health issues and provide a source of story ideas and contacts.

Incentives also form a central component of the Local Voices programme, which rewards journalists with equipment such as digital voice recorders and digital cameras if they complete an agreed-upon number of HIV/AIDS stories, post-training. Many trainees also receive travel grants to cover the epidemic in more remote parts of their countries.

Turnaround Time was conducted in a way that was less structured; training consisted of hands-on workshops, roundtables, and field trips. Experienced foreign journalists travelled to each site and taught writing and equipment-related technical skills such as how to record and edit digital voice for radio and how to improve lighting, sound, and camera angles for TV. Although some of the journalist trainers had HIV/AIDS knowledge and led exercises to broaden the scope of trainees, the programme relied on HIV/AIDS doctors from the various locales to teach medical and scientific topics. Field trips were often, but not always, included in training, and most but not all led to a story that later was broadcast or printed.

The evaluation team, which conducted its interviews from January to May 2008, consisted of two journalists and one development specialist. These personnel spoke with a wide variety of stakeholders during site visits and telephone interviews, reviewed reports written for funders, and assessed monitoring and evaluation data from the sites.

An excerpt from the Conclusion section of the report follows:

"...Impressive numbers exist: 1075 journalists participated in more than 100 workshops and nearly that many roundtables held by the two programs during the past six years. The journalists produced more than 5600 HIV/AIDS-related stories. But what's more impressive - and more difficult to document - is the progress that individuals made as journalists....[I]t's clear that both programs succeeded in teaching reporters how to cover HIV/AIDS more thoughtfully and with more sensitivity. Both programs at the very least reduced stigma and discrimination that reporters themselves felt toward PLHIV, and there's abundant evidence that this translated into more empathetic - and often more accurate - stories. At the very best, trainees improved their journalism skills across the board and came to see HIV/AIDS as a rich and complex topic that deserved close, careful attention.

The Kenya site developed more long-term relationships with trainees than any other, in part because it developed the most vibrant media resource center and because it had resident advisers who were experienced HIV/AIDS reporters. The much younger program in India appears on a similar track, and Nigeria has several trainees who have remained close with the program for years. The Vietnamese project, given the confines of the government restrictions, worked well, too. The sites in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Cambodia each made progress, but on the whole, they had more trouble attracting trainees and connecting with them. Each faced unique constraints...

That said, the project as a whole could have benefited from a closer relationship between the sites, as well as more coordination between Internews Network and Internews Europe....Each site also could have taken a more ambitious approach to the topics it covered, moving trainees more systematically from basic to complex subjects. And Internews as an organization needs to offer its key staffers more assistance...

Did Internews help slow the spread of HIV and help those who have been harmed by the virus? Who knows. There's no way to gauge that....But Internews helped journalists improve their coverage of HIV/AIDS. We know this because of what went into the programs and what came out. Most everywhere provided trainees with experienced journalists who were talented teachers, and, in the best situations, equally qualified HIV/AIDS experts. Internews also created meaningful, participatory workshops that included worthwhile field trips to HIV-related projects in the local communities. Dozens of reporters we interviewed told us how the training had led them to become not just better HIV/AIDS reporters, but better journalists. And sites that offered incentives to trainees further developed a core of top-notch HIV/AIDS reporters whose coverage has become as sophisticated, diverse, and complex as that found anywhere.

As reporting on HIV/AIDS became more thorough, accurate and fair in developed countries, it contributed to several critical changes: PLHIV were treated more humanely, wild claims began to die out sooner, the public became more capable of intelligently discussing the issues, and policy makers responded more rationally and promptly to the challenges. Developing countries, which account for the vast majority of HIV infections in the world, badly need to make the same progress..."

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