The AIDS and HIV Threat in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

II. The Media

Before I began my research I had no idea that for every 100,000 people living in Allegheny County, 183 would have AIDS.  Even though this number is below the national average of about 326 per 100,000, it is still a shocking statistic and it is surprising that I was completely unaware of its existence (see table 1.1).  While it may seem too easy to blame my ignorance on the media, the bulk of the blame does rest in their hands.  The two major competing papers in Pittsburgh are the Pittsburgh Post Gazette (PPG), which has the highest circulation and is the paper I sometimes read, and the Tribune Review (Trib), which is the second most-read paper in the Pittsburgh region.  The PPG has a sizeable liberal bias, while the Trib leans to the right.  To accurately judge what type of effect the Pittsburgh papers have on my view of AIDS in Allegheny County I searched the archives of both these papers to see how extensive their coverage was. 

As an initial, rough test I searched for the term “AIDS” in both these newspapers’ full archives and on their website, where important and more recent articles can be found.  The results are quite telling.  For the PPG I found that the term returned over 3,000 results in the full archive and 500 on their website.  The Trib, on the other hand, had 647 results from their archives and a measly 6 on their website.  This simple test revealed a greater trend.  While searching through the PPG archives, I found many articles detailing the plight of AIDS victims in Africa, such as an Op-Ed piece about a Pittsburgher’s visit to Zambia (2).  While of course important, these articles did not address the issue of AIDS in Pittsburgh.  I did find some examples of local AIDS coverage in the PPG, however.  One such article was about the Seven Project, Inc., a group that passes out free condoms and information about HIV testing to call to attention the risk “growing among heterosexual women over age 50, particularly among black and Hispanic women” (3).  This article is a good example of local AIDS coverage, but was one of only a couple dozen found in the archives of the PPG since the AIDS epidemic started in the 1980s.

An even worse situation can be found in the Trib.  The only articles I could find in the archives dealt mostly with AIDS research and the success of University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (4).  The conservative leanings of the Trib are most likely responsible for the lack of general AIDS coverage and the local situation in particular.  Sadly, valuable articles about Pittsburgh’s AIDS situation are rare in the local media and undoubtedly had some affect on my perspective of AIDS in Pittsburgh.

Google News, my main news source, also impacts my perspective of local AIDS.  This is a difficult source to analyze because it simply creates headlines based on the day’s major stories and gets articles on the subject from many different sources.  When reading Google News, I usually read the international stories, which is probably one of the reasons that I was more aware of the problems AIDS poses to Africa and not Pittsburgh.

In addition to the local media’s portrayal of AIDS, the lack of visibility for the local AIDS organizations also influenced my view of AIDS in Pittsburgh.  Although there are organizations such as the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force that work hard to remind Pittsburghers that AIDS is still an issue, they do not do much work outside the city and their awareness campaigns have not reached the suburbs where I live.  In fact, the sad truth is that the PATF had to stop organizing the Pittsburgh AIDS Walk “due to the lack of local support and money [and] competition with many other non-profit walks/runs in the region,” forcing the 10^th and final AIDS Walk in 2004 to adopt the sad and overly optimistic slogan of “A Push Towards the Finish” (5).  An interesting media slant can be found in a PPG article about the event, where the claims of the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force member Gina Focareta were dismissed by the article’s author: “‘I think a lot has to do with people who don't think they're at risk and that the big scare is over -- and it isn't. Actually, rates are rising, especially in the African-American community.’  Locally, the number of new AIDS cases reported in Allegheny County in 2003 declined from the previous year, said Barbara Murray, public health administrator for the Allegheny County Health Department” (6).  This clever assurance still does not directly address the fact that some parts of the population are still at higher risk, even as the overall number of cases declines.  The lacking media coverage was definitely a factor in my assumption that Allegheny County had low AIDS infection rates.

Proceed to III. The Problem

Back to I. Background