By Wynona Latham - A fresh eye on the story, an in-depth understanding of the issue and innovative storytelling techniques – these are some of the best practices identified by 10 IWMF 2012 HIV/AIDS Investigative Journalism Fellows inSouth Africa.

The International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) Fellows completed their fellowship by presenting their work to their colleagues, mentors, programme speakers and guests. The presentations preceded a discussion on how to increase innovative coverage of HIV/AIDS.

The event marked the end of the fellowship during which the 10 fellows attended a series of investigative reporting workshops, presentations and knowledge-building sessions. Each fellow was mentored by a skilled investigative journalist who assisted them in producing three to four investigative reports.

The IWMF also selected four returning 2011 fellows to support the programme while continuing their investigations.

Keynote speakerMia Malan, Health Editor of the Mail and Guardian, outlined the challenges journalists needed to overcome in order to tell the HIV story effectively.

“No HIV story deserves to be in the media merely because it focuses on a devastating epidemic … it needs to be told in a compelling way.”

For this reason, reporters needed a range of skills including understanding science, policy and data.

“HIV is no longer the story but rather an issue that helps to frame the understanding of other broader issues,” said Malan.

“This is the second annual fellowship and it reinforces the value of sustained skills development combined with mentorship and creation of strong networks,” said frayintermedia managing director Paula Fray who oversees the fellowship implementation inSouth Africa.

IWMF Executive Director Elisa Lees Munoz said: “The IWMF’s methodology, providing long-term training coupled with institutional support and mentoring, provides an excellent platform for sustainable learning on any topic.”

It was noted that one of the problems encountered by the fellows was the lack of willingness of people to come forward as sources.

Harriet Mclea, a health reporter and former IWMF fellow said: “It’s about getting people to talk and having to press on to make those who don’t want to talk, talk. We also have to look hard for the people who are willing to talk.”

Other problems raised included that lack of support, the sexual politics involved in submitting an HIV and Aids story as well as the need to balance indepth reporting with a human interest angle.

The fellows include Mukelwa Hlatshwayo, 3rd degree eTV; Euline Fillis, SABC (Fokus); Tanja Bencun, SABC  (SAfm); Bibi-Ayesha Wadvalla, SABC (Digital News); Ina Skosana, The New Age; Sipho Masombuka, The Times; Sibongile Mashaba, The Sowetan; Bianca Capazorio, Weekend Argus; Nomsa Zwane, Alex FM.

By Wynona Latham

- Greater access to information has changed the role of the health journalist to selector, arbiter and trusted curator – increasing the need for skilled, informed and courageous journalism in the sector.

“Health is propelling itself to a greater degree of prominence,” said Professor Harry Dugmore, Head of the Discovery Health Journalism Centre which was launched in partnership with the Rhodes University School of Journalism in 2010.

According to Dugmore, audiences are demanding more information about, amongst others, health policy, health insurance, medical schemes and how the national health programmes work and this is creating a viable market.

Health journalism can be divided into three categories, says Dugmore.

The first is focused on the politics of health: “It can be about political reporting; about facilities and about how the medical system or local hospitals are operating.” To report on this, “requires quite a specific expertise in terms of understanding the landscape of what the issues are”.

The second category is medical journalism that links for science reporting. This kind of requires the journalistic ability of interpretation in order to translate complex science into the language of the reader. Dugmore says thousands of papers and journals are released each day covering a multitude of medical specialities: “So who makes that accessible to the public? Who does that interpretation?”

There is a need, he says, for journalists to be able to “read the language of science” as well as “making science available and explicable to ordinary people”.

The third category is lifestyle journalism. “It’s about how to live a healthier lifestyle and encouraging people to do more healthy things,” he says.

But the challenge of writing for a lay audience also brings the danger of oversimplification which, in turn, distorts meaning: “You’ve got to simplify; you’ve got to explain; you’ve got to use metaphors; and, you’ve got to use all sorts of techniques to enhance your readers’ understanding,” says Dugmore.

“A lot of things happen to make bad journalism… the main one is just misinterpreting the numbers and when you’re translating statistics into ordinary English, it’s very difficult to make sense of things.”

Dugmore says that this misinterpretation is one of the things that irritates the scientific community. The other is the tendency of some journalist to sensationalize breakthroughs when science, in fact, has an incremental nature: “People might be working for years and building a little more new knowledge each day and (then) a journalist comes and says here’s a breakthrough.”

According to Dugmore, the health journalism standard inSouth Africais very uneven but improving. “I think we’ve seen quite a focus on health journalism in the last five years partly because of the Discovery Health Journalism Awards,” says Dugmore.

There is no doubt that health journalism is burgeoning. Easier access to information has allowed “ordinary people” to seek out information on the internet. And, with this, access to misinformation as well.

This access to information has changed the role of the journalist to selector, abitrar and trusted curator, says Dugmore. The reader needs to know truth from fiction and how that is determined. “We think the only basis has got to be scientific and it’s got to be evidential.”

Developing sources

Dugmore places emphasis on the network of sources to aid in interpreting information. He notes that “there is substantial specialist knowledge that you’ve got to master to be good at it and, as part of that knowledge, there is an additional element which is your networks and your connections that you have to develop to be proficient.”

A health journalist should be able to find a legitimate debate, be as objective as possible and know enough to ask the right questions from their range of sources, says Dugmore.

Despite these various challenges, Dugmore believes that there are real pockets of excellence in South African health journalism. “We’ve been lucky, we’ve got a small group of committed science and health journalists … many of whom do amazing work.”

Dugmore points to the winners of the various categories of the 2012 Discovery Health Journalism awards as the best examples of this excellence. This year the prestigious award for Best Health News Reporting and Discovery Health Journalist of the Year 2011 went to S’thembiso Hlongwane of DRUM magazine for his hard-hitting feature about cancer sufferers in Swaziland who are “Waiting to die” because of lack of treatment.

For more information on the awards, click here: http://www.discovery.co.za/portal/loggedout-individual/journalism-media-about

Journalists  from around Johannesburg attended a three-week modular course on Finance and Business Writing at the frayintermedia training centre in Dunkeld, Johannesburg, in October in a training partnership funded by Old Mutual and supported by the South African National Editors Forum (SANEF).

Reporters and newcomers to the field of financial reporting were trained on to report on Finance and Business Reporting and key Responsible Business Principles.

NEW ERA NEWS LEADERS

Newsroom leaders from around the country attended a week-long New Era News Management workshop at the frayintermedia training centre in Dunkeld, Johannesburg, in October in a training partnership funded by Old Mutual and supported by the South African National Editors Forum (SANEF).

Nineteen news editors, assistant and acting news editors as well as senior reporters attended the workshop which reviewed managing people and managing processes in an era of dynamic newsroom changes. Press Ombudsman Joe Thloloe was one of several guest speakers who presented on various aspect of new era leadership.

New Era News Management Programme