Press Releases

Nigerian Journalist Puts a Human Face on HIV/AIDS

October 26, 2007

“I thought I was going to die, because my elder sister died of AIDS-related illnesses in 2000. I was imagining if that was how I was going to go down and become miserable like my late sister. I was not convinced with all the counseling about positive living.”
– Linda Omenka, a person living with HIV, from an article by Sun reporter Agaptus Anaele

Ronke Olawale Journalist Agaptus Anaele interviews Dr. Tawakalitu Ogtun, Consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologist, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital.

For many years, Nigerian reporter Agaptus Anaele from The Sun in Lagos struggled to engage his readers with the HIV stories he wrote. His editor often did not publish his stories, arguing that they were boring and did not relate to the newspaper’s audience. But all of that changed earlier this year, when Agaptus attended an ENHANSE/Internews workshop where he learned how to humanize stories about the AIDS epidemic.

“The training has greatly changed my writing style and enabled me to tell stories with a human face. This approach I must confess has made every copy I submit to my editor to be approved, because it really connects with the people.”

The newspaper Agaptus works for is a tabloid, with a special emphasis on human and investigative stories. Agaptus also attended an ENHANSE/Internews advanced training on “Tracking HIV Money.”

“I always thought that budget tracking was dry and could not generate a story with a human face, but to my surprise, I returned to the office with two stories after the HIV budget tracking workshop, that were published immediately. I was surprised, one of my stories focused on an official at Nigeria’s Ministry of Health and his frustrations in making people understand how monies for HIV/AIDS work are spent.”

His most recent story focused on the issues around donor and government funds for HIV. “A lot of funding is coming into my country Nigeria,” he says, “but nobody seems to figure out how the money is being accessed and who gets what. The investigative character of the media is the only way to ensure accountability, and ensure that the poor people who the monies are actually meant for know how it is being spent.”

Agaptus has entered an intensive mentoring program with the Internews Nigeria training team in Abuja. The trainers give him useful tips on the stories he writes. “Internews also helps me fine tune my ideas in such a way that my editor can't but jump at my copy by the time I present it.” With this mentoring, Agaptus has also written HIV stories on injection safety and medical waste management issues in Nigeria.

These stories have won him an Internews digital camera given to print journalists who excel after trainings. “The camera is invaluable. In my unit, there is no photo journalist. Sometimes, you get stories ready, but have to wait for the photo journalist from another department to get a picture to go with your story. That is now a thing of the past.”

Agaptus can now also do stories outside of Lagos, where he is based. Earlier this year, Internews awarded him a travel grant to report on the lives of children orphaned by AIDS in Southeastern Nigeria.

The ENHANSE/Internews journalism Development Program is funded through the US Agency for International Development and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.