At a recent American Forum discussion on campus it became apparent that media coverage of AIDS has dwindled significantly in the past few years. While AIDS is still a major, growing problem in the world and in the United States, The Eagle believes that media coverage will not significantly swell again until a new breakthrough or catastrophe occurs. Dwindling coverage is not a good or a bad thing, but simply an inevitable result of the nature of the business.
News is ephemeral, and the continued existence of a social or health issue over long periods of time does not translate into daily news stories. AIDS has been around for many years now, and U.S. citizens are desensitized to the issue. People know what it is, they know that it's a problem, and most people know how to avoid it. Yet until something drastically new happens that will affect large numbers of people, such as a dramatic new method for ameliorating the problem, people will hold the issue in the back of their minds. This has happened with other diseases, such as cancer and even SARS.
However, this fact should in no way diminish the tragedy and suffering that AIDS inflicts on over 40 million people worldwide. Just because the media do not place articles about AIDS on the front page every day does not mean the issue is not important or pressing. The onus on the media should not be placed on covering AIDS as a general topic, but on presenting and investigating new angles and new perspectives on the issue that will affect local or national audiences. Africa and other Third World regions of the globe face the most challenges from AIDS, but the average American does not care much for international news, especially news from Third World countries. More coverage should be devoted to examining the efficiency of U.S. AIDS benefit programs, new developments in AIDS education, and new breakthroughs in research. AIDS isn't going away in the foreseeable future, so no one should panic about its current decline in media content.
