Health – related issues, including HIV and AIDS, are sensitive subjects. They require journalists to be ethical when reporting on them. There is need to equip and empower journalists and find out the state of HIV and AIDS Reporting in Zimbabwe taking into cognizance the journalists from community newspapers, editors, senior journalists and freelance reporters. Words are not neutral. Language is what society is thinking, so journalists need to use language responsibly, since media is a powerful agent of change. Being ethical entails maintaining the basic principles of journalism which include: accuracy, honesty, balance, objectivity, confidentiality, sensitivity and respect for privacy. An ethical approach to HIV and AIDS will focus on how to do the least harm and achieve the greatest good. Such an approach will assist in reducing the number of people who contract the virus, and to relieving the physical or psychological distress being suffered by people living with HIV and AIDS. Reporting on HIV and AIDS issues has many challenges. Journalists may hinder good reporting by not researching sufficiently for an article, resulting in misleading reports being published. Ethical reporting of HIV and AIDS issues requires that the media have the ability to sift facts, and analyze their implications and the intentions of the institutions presenting them. Although journalists may strive to ensure that all reports on scientific studies are accurate, this does not eliminate the risk of a report being misleading. Misrepresentation of the findings can arise through generalizations made from limited data, selective coverage of available evidence, and failure to refer to contradictory findings. Journalists should ensure that they use credible sources in their reporting. They should consider the reputation of the institute or academic department in which an investigation has taken place, and the professional qualifications and track records of the investigators. But the reputations or qualifications of sources do not guarantee that published findings are either definitive or significant. If journalists are writing about scientific findings, they should ensure the work has been peer reviewed, and that published accounts of investigations are worthy of consideration by the wider community. Journalists should, therefore, establish whether the work has been assessed and make clear indications when it has not. In science and health research, abrupt ‘breakthroughs’ do occur, but only rarely. Studies that appear to radically challenge existing assumptions should be handled with particular care by journalists. When findings are at variance with previous knowledge, it should be stated clearly within the first few lines of a newspaper report, or the airtime equivalent in broadcast news. Journalists should be at pains to obtain the opinions of scientists qualified in a relevant field to explain why the interpretation put on the new findings might be considered premature or even unfounded. Unfounded scares can cause very serious damage to public health. While the harm and distress caused by reports on miracle cures is more difficult to measure than that of unfounded scares, raising false hope can damage the public interest. But also journalists must not criticize power of Miracle Healing. Journalists should always, therefore, emphasize the limitations of reported medical advances in their reports. When in doubt, journalists reporting on medical advances should consider the effect of their report on a person with the disease in question, or a relative, or a close friend affected by the disease. It is important that health matters are reported factually and ethically because of misleading information is potentially dangerous and can even cost lives. Information that is misleading or factually inaccurate can cause real distress to vulnerable groups. It can be said to cost lives when it invokes unfounded public reactions like reluctance to undergo vaccination or tests. Journalists need their reporting skills upgraded in order for them to be effective communicators. There is need of holding effective workshops on ethical approaches to HIV and AIDS Reporting.
