Abstract
The nature of HIV/Aids media coverage has been widely criticised, mainly by interest groups. Thishas resulted in constructive, though somewhat fragmented, guidelines on ethically acceptable,accountable HIV/Aids reporting. In this article the analysed and systematically summarisedguidelines (Swanepoel, 2005:77-137) are used to evaluate HIV/Aids reporting in three SouthAfrican Sunday papers. It was found that these newspapers partially meet the interest groupcriteria. They raise awareness satisfactorily, but agenda setting could be improved. Although thereis comprehensive coverage of HIV/Aids issues, critical, in-depth reporting is lacking. Furthermore,there is an exaggerated focus on HIV/Aids politics, and too little on relevant scientific and socialissues. A lack of alternative angles and a tendency towards sensationalism are noticeable. Thethree papers often emphasise the “victim image”, and fail to use HIV/Aids-sensitive languageconsistently. In respect of accuracy, there are deficiencies in the use of news source
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