In the past decade, the interest of NGOs and governments in the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been piqued, as numbers of those infected have risen to tens of millions. Keeping coverage of the disease on the cover of newspapers, and on television news without sensationalising it, however, is becoming increasingly difficult.

In addition to media fatigue, Delate claims a number of other factors continue to hamper the development of a culture of investigative journalism on HIV/AIDS: "A great challenge lies in creating a conducive partnership between media, civil society and government. For many organisations, journalists are only seen as conduits of information. However, when journalists delve beneath the surface, become sceptical of claims made in research reports, or question the viability of programmes, the shutters come down." Cutbacks faced by media institutions in South Africa and across the continent, both in terms of staff and resources, also take their toll on resources available to journalists.

With this in mind, last month, Journ-AIDS, a programme run by the Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation (CADRE), launched a forum for journalists covering issues of HIV/AIDS to help reinvigorate reporting on the disease.

The Journ-AIDS forum, an outcome of a roundtable that included journalists from around South Africa, exists to facilitate networking and encourage communication and the sharing of experiences between journalists committed to reporting on issues of HIV/AIDS.

The rules of the forum are determined by the members, with Journ-AIDS playing more of a facilitative and supportive role in the electronic listserve’s operation. As such, members of the forum decided it should be a space dedicated to journalists only and should focus primarily on issues hampering media reporting on HIV/AIDS.

Although in a nascent stage, some serious debates have already taken place in the forum, an example being the pressures that can be placed on journalists when their reporting on HIV/AIDS is regarded by stakeholders to be negative. Information sharing such as the swapping of contacts also figures prominently in discussions between members of the network.

Weekly bulletins are compiled to provide members with a summary of the discussions that have taken place on the network as well as news on HIV/AIDS from other networks.

To date, South African journalists have dominated membership of the forum, and participation by journalists from other African countries has been low. This should soon change, however, as Journ-AIDS is set to undertake a major marketing drive which will include targeted mails to media institutions to raise awareness about the forum.

The development of the Journ-AIDS network is part of a larger programme driven by CADRE on media reporting and HIV/AIDS. All aspects of the programme are developed in discussion with media representatives, who also figured dominantly in its initial conceptualisation. This includes the website http://www.journ-aids.org, which contains resources like fact-sheets, an online documentation centre, a host of links and materials such as electronic journals, discussion forums and other relevant websites and contacts, all on the subject of HIV/AIDS.