Groundbreaking work of SJMC students and faculty to be showcased on public television


By Susan Feinberg

The groundbreaking work of faculty and staff at FIU’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC) to raise public awareness of HIV/AIDS will be showcased in a one-hour program on WPBT/Channel 2, South Florida public television. The program will air at 10 p.m. on  October 15, National Latino AIDS Awareness Day.

Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently announced that there were 40 percent more new HIV infections each year than previously believed, the public’s sense of urgency about HIV/AIDS  as a health problem has fallen dramatically. This is due, in part, to staff cutbacks in newsrooms and scaled-back health reporting forced by a challenging economy.

In South Florida, which has the third highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the nation, there is a great need to inform the public about the illness.

The WPBT program will feature a 30-minute documentary, “Lessons from South Africa,” produced by SJMC Interim Associate Dean Allan Richards. Several months ago, Richards held a writing competition for journalism students on the HIV-related theme “Why Should We Care?”  The winners, Jillian Simms and Tiffany Parkes, accompanied him on a trip to South Africa, the epicenter of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

During their 12-day visit, Richards and his students were inspired by how the South African media are educating and mobilizing the public with dozens of innovative projects. Their SJMC students interviews with leading South African journalists and health officials are featured in the documentary.

The public television program will also showcase four videos created by SJMC students and produced by faculty member Kate MacMillin which focus on the life story of HIV/AIDS activist Damaries Cruz. The webisodes, titled “The Stigma Stops with Me,” were posted on the Miami Herald web site in March.

A question-and-answer session between SJMC students and clinicians from the Miami-Dade County Health Department about the diagnosis and treatment of HIV/AIDS will be included in the public television program.

WPBT is planning to create a Web site to stream the videos, the documentary and the question-and-answer session.

“Our goal is to alert the public about the resurgence of the disease and get HIV coverage back on the front page,” said Richards.