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Citizen journalists lift their voices at AIDS 2010

27/07/2010

By Kelly Davis, Executive Producer, Global Health TV

Everything you've heard about the AIDS conference is true: it's crazy. There are activists of every stripe, stunts and slogans, controversies and chaos. And sometimes it seems like no one can agree on how to tackle the AIDS problem.

One thing that struck me though was the rise of citizen and community journalism. Although traditional media outlets are represented you're just as likely to rub shoulders with a reporter from a niche community paper or jostle for position among camera crews using equipment the size of a mobile phone. While it would be easy to discount the importance of these journalists, I think that would be a mistake.

I was lucky enough to meet some Key Correspondents, brought to Vienna by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance. These citizen journalists are based in communities affected by AIDS all over the world and report on issues there. In Vienna the Alliance was looking to them to bring their unique vision to bear on the conference - experimenting with Flip cameras and recording their views as the conference unfolded. For those of us who have worked in the media for a long time it’s interesting to see how these people’s take on issues is different from that we see in mainstream media. While many journalists rarely left the vast, well-equipped, media centre at the conference it was the citizen journalists I saw out and about talking with sex workers campaigning for rights or sharing experiences with colleagues from other parts of the world.

I am excited about what access to affordable equipment and online distribution could mean for reporters like the Alliance’s Key Correspondents. We will all benefit when the voices of people affected directly by HIV AIDS and other public health issues are heard more widely.