The Press Council of India (PCI) has issued fresh guidelines for the print and electronic media when reporting HIV and Aids stories.
Scribes should use correct terminology and base facts on scientific input, says Press Council of India NEW DELHI: The Press Council of India (PCI) has issued fresh guidelines for the print and electronic media when reporting HIV and Aids stories. This is to ensure that the media distinguishes between Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome while reporting on the disease and shun expressions like ‘scourge’ and linking patients to caste, gender or sexual orientation. The council also says the media should not reinforce stereotypes about sexual minorities like lesbians, gays or trans-genders.
“HIV is not synonymous with Aids, HIV/Aids as a term is no longer considered accurate,” the council said.
PCI urged the media to be sensitive to patients and not reveal their identity or whereabouts. They should not use hidden camera to show people living with HIV or the images of the sick and dying. Graphics of skulls and crossbones must not be used while reporting about the disease, PCI says.
India has about 2.5 million HIV positive patients, including 70,000 children below the age of 14. The council made it clear that identity of children affected by HIV should not be revealed and their photographs should not be published. “This includes orphans and children living in orphanages and juvenile homes,” it said.
“The focus should be on facts. Distortion of facts in any manner to make the story salacious and, therefore, more saleable is unacceptable,” PCI warns. When reporting on HIV and AIDS, scribes must use the correct terminology and base their facts on scientific inputs. PCI also wants media to teach readers the difference between HIV and Aids.
“Being a syndrome or a collection of symptoms, Aids cannot itself be transmitted, nor is there an Aids virus, nor an Aids carrier,” the guidelines say. “Similarly, a person either does or does not have Aids. Since there are no degrees of Aids, the expression ‘full-blown Aids’ is meaningless,” the council said.
And effective treatment being available, HIV does not necessarily lead to Aids. It is important to reflect this in reportage. The council underscored the need for references establishing existing prejudices against sexual minorities, be they men who have sex with men (MSM), injecting drug users (IDUs), sex workers or migrants. Sexual minorities also include people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and covers men, women and all those who do not identify either as men or women (transgender).
Transgender includes hijras, who are essentially biological born males who do not identify as men and prefer to identify as women. It is important to understand that MSMs may never identify as homosexual.
Therefore, the word MSM is used to denote behaviour only. So it is appropriate to say “Oscar Wilde was a gay man and not Oscar was gay”, the council said by way of example to show correct reporting about gay or lesbian persons.
b_rakesh@dnaindia.net 
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