science journalism – Page 12

AV against HIV: Recalling my own ‘Richard Gere moment’

The 8th International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, or ICAAP8, opens in my home city of Colombo in a few days’ time. As I wrote in an earlier post, some of us have been blocked out of this important event by some arrogant members of the conference Secretariat. But our interest in HIV/AIDS advocacy will not be so easily deterred.

On a positive note, I have vivid memories of my active involvement in the XV International AIDS Conference, held in Bangkok, which attracted over 17,000 delegates to the Thai capital for a week full of events and activities. One of them was the official 2004 International AIDS Film Festival, which TVE Asia Pacific organised at the invitation of the Thai Ministry of Public Health and the International AIDS Society.

2004 AIDS Film Festival in Bangkok

Over 4 days, we screened close to 50 TV and video films at three venues, drawing a total of more than 8,000 visitors. These films came from all over the world, in response to an open call that we had issued. We received a rich mix of genres: documentaries, docu-drama, current affairs programming, short television spots as well as entertainment formats — animation, dramas and reality television.

Films at this festival captured the kaleidoscope of emotions, challenges and contradictions presented by the AIDS pandemic. They were evidence of how TV and film professionals are covering HIV as a major development concern of our times.

That formidable task — which we summed up as ‘AV against HIV’ — received a boost when movie industry heavyweights joined in. We had documentaries narrated by Angelina Jolie, Will Smith and Glenn Close.

And while we were organising the festival, actor-activist Richard Gere sent the word saying he was interested in being associated with it. Of course we seized the offer, and had him open the film festival — hugely raising its profile in the Thai and international media.

2004 AIDS Film Festival banner by TVEAP Richard Gere arrives for 2004 AIDS Film Festival, Bangkok Richard Gere being welcomed by Thai children

After three years, I can still remember the moving speech that Richard Gere made at the opening ceremony in the Scala cinema in downtown Bangkok. Talking to an audience packed with diplomats, businessmen, journalists, activists and government officials, he said his experience with persons living with HIV had changed his life even more than his study of Tibetan Buddhism.

He recalled how he had lost a very close friend to HIV. “I don’t want anyone else to die like that,” he said, adding: “It (AIDS) has gone on too long, way too long.”

Then he did something simple yet very effective. He asked everyone who knew at least one person living with HIV to put their hands up. A few dozen hands went up in an audience of around 500.

Next, he said: hands up everyone who has lost at least one person to HIV. Some hands went down while three dozen remained held up.

I did not put my hands up for either call.

That was a moment of truth for myself. Until then, I hadn’t really, closely known anyone who was living with HIV (and disclosed that fact to me). I also had not lost anyone to HIV. Not knowingly anyway.

As the event progressed, I sat there asking myself:
• What kind of little comfort zone or cocoon am I living in?
• What kind of society do I live in, where very few people – if anyone – would dare to acknowledge they are living with HIV?
• And how can I remain authentic, communicating HIV from such a detached standpoint?

Richard Gere at XVI AIDS Conference in Toronto, 2006

I’ve been writing and speaking about HIV for almost two decades. In that time, I have touched on many aspects of HIV, including:
• The science of HIV/AIDS, as a science communicator;
• Public health aspects of the global pandemic as a feature writer;
• The human rights dimensions of HIV, as a development communicator; and
• Nexus between media and HIV, as a media watcher/researcher.

But I sat there in the Scala cinema wondering if it was sufficient for me to have done all that with the objectivity of a journalist, or the clinical detachment of a researcher.

I then realised that when it comes to HIV/AIDS, we have to suspend these ordinary frameworks and ‘conditioning’ of our training.

We have to:
• Stop thinking of it as someone else’s problem;
• Get away from the ‘us’ and ‘them’ mindset;
• Understand that no one is immune or buffered from the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV; and
• More than anything else — stop living in denial.

These apply to individuals, communities, society — and also governments.

That was my Richard Gere moment.

Read TVEAP news report on 2004 AiDS Film Festival

See more photos on 2004 AIDS Film Festival on TVEAP website

Photos by Jerome Ming and Indika Wanniarachchi for TVEAP

The return of the ‘Donnish young man’

Some of my friends who read this blog think I’m fond of name dropping. It’s just that I keep meeting some really interesting and accomplished people as I travel around the world in the course of my work.

Each such encounter enriches me. I write about some of these here to share that joy and inspiration.

Remember I wrote about Robyn Williams , the doyen of science broadcasting in Australia, and his analogy of science journalists and whales?

Well, Robyn and I are among the few participants at the Fifth World Conference of Science Journalists here in Melbourne who were also at the first such conference, some 15 years ago. That was held in Tokyo, Japan, in the Fall of 1992.
Jim Cornell, president of the International Science Writers Association (IWSA) is another.

In Tokyo, Jim Cornell invited me to join a panel discussion on science journalism in the developing countries. I was 26 at the time, and was on my first visit to Japan. All these years later, I can’t recall everything I said. But I remember how I quoted Karan Singh, a former minister of population in India, to the effect that in many poor countries where survival was a daily struggle, ‘Development is the best contraceptive’.

Robyn Williams picked this up in an account of the conference he wrote up in UNESCO Sources, the monthly magazine published by the UN’s science agency. He described me as ‘a donnish young man from Sri Lanka’!

I’ve been trying to live this down ever since.

Beware of ‘Vatican condoms’ – and global warming

You never know where the next piece of helpful advice can come from.

Here at the Fifth World Conference of Science Journalists, currently underway in Melbourne, we were told to be careful in using Vatican condoms: they have holes in them!

It’s a joke, of course, but the implications of increasing human numbers is no laughing matter. And neither is global warming and resulting climate change — one major topic of discussion at the conference.

Professor Roger V Short, FRS, from the University of Melbourne made a passionate plea for controlling our numbers: “We are the global warmers. And we hold the key to containing and reducing it.”

He was speaking at session on ‘Life and death in 2020: how will science respond?’

Human population has increased at an unprecedented rate. When he was born, the world had a total of 2 billion people, the elderly academic said. Now, the estimate is around 6.7 billion.

By 2050, according to the United Nations, it is set to reach 9 billion. And that with all efforts at family planning.

The United States and Australia are the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Yet, Australia is the only developed country that is encouraging its people to increase the birthrate.

Are we out of our minds, Professor Short wondered.

The message was loud and clear: unless we seriously contain our numbers, we — and our planet — are doomed.

Prof Short recalled how he’d spent a inspiring week with Thailand’s Senator Michai Viravaidya – known as ‘Mr Condom’ in Thailand for his unashamed and long-standing promoting of condom use — to both reduce population growth and to contain the spread of HIV.

Wide use of condoms, and globally adopting a one-child-per-family policy, can give us a chance to arrest run-away global warming, Prof Short suggested.

The world is urgently in need of many more Mr Condoms, it seems.

To illustrate his point, Prof Short took out a T-Shirt saying ‘Stop Global Warming: Use Condoms!‘ and presented it to John Rennie, editor of the Scientific American, who was chairing the session.

The good sport that Rennie was, he immediately donned it.

Read what Christine Scott said about HIV and South Africa during the same session

Science journalists and whales: much in common?

Science journalists have been called many names, some more memorable than others.

Speaking at the inauguration of the 5th World Conference of Science Journalists, Robyn Williams — the doyen of science broadcasting in Australia — suggested a new analogy: they are like whales in many ways.

To paraphrase his witty opening remarks, whales and science journalists have some things in common (my comments in brackets):

They both respond to lots of free drinks and eats.

In fact, they like to drink vast amounts (though not necessarily the same liquids!).

There is evidence to suggest they are both intelligent species.

They are both endangered too – there are some nasty people out to get them.

Both are free spirits – don’t like being trapped or hounded.

And they are known for occasional mass strandings – in the case of science journalists, it first happened in Tokyo (which choice whales might not approve!), followed by Budapest, Sao Paulo, Montreal and now – Melbourne.

These are the cities that have hosted World Conferences of Science Journalists, beginning in 1992.

It’s an event that happens approxiatemly every three years — or as soon as the next host can line up the massive logistics involved in receiving, feeding and keeping the several hundreds whales – sorry, science journalists – happy.

Robyn Williams, image courtesy ABC

Robyn is not just a very entertaining broadcaster, but has has written more than 10 books — one of them a novel, 2007: A True Story Waiting to Happen.

By coincidence, the story involves whales – one of his favourite species – and its action starts in April 2007!

Here’s the blurb promoting the book, first published in 2001:

It is the year 2007. The weather is now wreaking turmoil on the planet. Hurricanes, cyclones, tsunamis, floods, fires, droughts and diseases are sweeping the world with increasing frequency and severity. The poor countries are worst hit, but even the rich ones are no longer immune from major disruption. Big business is worried.

In April 2007, the animals take matters into their own hands. An enormous pod of whales sinks a whale-killing submarine. Massive flocks of pelicans close airports around the world. Huge herds of cattle bring freeways everywhere to a halt, burying cars under mountains of steaming dung.

Desperate to find a solution to the global chaos, the President of the United States calls on the world’s top scientists to explain what it happening and how to stop it. One man, his daughter and her dog hold the key, but before things can get better, they have to get a great deal worse.

Hmmm. Robyn is known and admired for many talents, but perhaps the world hasn’t yet appreciated his powers of prescience.

Having blazed new trails in taking science to the public, Robyn now presents The Science Show on ABC radio.

Science journalism, key to good governance

From Sydney, I have travelled to Melbourne to participate in the Fifth World Conference of Science Journalists, from 16 to 20 April 2007.

It’s the second time a science communication event brings me to this beautiful, multi-cultural Australian city. My first visit was in November 1996 to speak at SCICOMM ’96, the Fourth International Conference on the Public Understanding of Science and Technology, held at the University of Melbourne.

This week’s conference is promising to be interesting and engaging. The programme is full of talks, panels, debates and other activities. Several hundred fellow science journalists, and those researching or supporting science journalism, are expected to attend.

I’ll be kept busy being on two separate panels.

David Dickson, Director of the Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net), has just written an editorial that provides an excellent backdrop to the conference. He argues that the work of science journalists needs greater recognition as an essential precondition for transparent, responsive and accountable government.

Excerpts:

Much will be heard and discussed about how science journalists can inform — and, frequently, entertain — people with stories about scientific and technological developments. Equally important is their role in stimulating public debate in areas where science and technology can impact directly on the social and natural worlds, from stem cell research to global warming.

At the heart of many of these issues lies the key contribution that journalism can make to good governance. The concept of the journalist as a defender of the public interest is usually applied to those writing about overtly political issues, since it is here that the need for — and indeed the challenges to — a free press are often greatest.

But a growing number of political decisions, from allocating medical resources to promoting economic growth, have a scientific and technological dimension to them. It is therefore important to recognise the extent to which science journalism forms an essential component of a well-functioning democracy.
Read the full editorial on SciDev.Net website

Unfortunately, David is not able to join us in person — he’s holed up in London, finalising the organisation’s new five-year strategy.

Note:
I’m flying twin flags at this conference – as the Director of TVE Asia Pacific, and as a Trustee of SciDev.Net

I plan to be posting on to this personal blog as well as to a collective blog by several colleagues from SciDev.Net who are in Melbourne.