NLGJA: The Association of LGBT Journalists (formerly the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association) received a $130,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to offer training and resources to improve media coverage of HIV, reports Press Pass Q.

The grant will help develop in-person and web-based trainings, online resources and fellowships. The five-year renewable grant is part of the CDC’s Partnering and Communicating Together to Act Against AIDS program.

HIV advocates told Press Pass Q the training is necessary and comes at a good time. As blogger Mark S. King said: “The HIV epidemic has morphed into a story of criminals, injustice, crippling social stigma from within our own community, and the politics of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).”

Sean Strub, who founded POZ and is the executive director of the Sero Project, listed three topics he hopes the NLGJA program will address: the volume of coverage, the depth and perspectives that are covered, and the voices and rolls of people living with HIV.

“Too often,” Strub said about the current quality of reporting on HIV, “it is journalism by press release, without reporters digging in, making the calls, treating claims from pharma with skepticism, and understanding the bigger context that is relevant. Why do we have loads of funding to bring people to Washington to lobby for ADAP (AIDS Drug Assistance Program) funding, but nothing to lobby for price controls, access to generics or to allow states to negotiate the prices for the drugs on their formularies?

“Why do so many reports and studies say that stigma is the number one obstacle and we must have greater involvement of PLHIV (people living with HIV) in order to stop the epidemic, yet when one looks at the funding, there’s nothing for truly effective stigma reduction and there’s almost no support for networks of PLHIV? We need journalists who ask these and other questions, not simply report on a press release.”

To read the NLGJA press release, click here; any journalists interested in the free trainings should contact PACT@nlgja.org for updates.