A Health Reporting Conference under the theme “Opening up New Possibilities through Dialogue”, took place from the 10th to the 11th of May in Johannesburg, South Africa. Organised by Wits University and Africa Media Assignments the conference sought to find out the state of health reporting in South Africa. Although the conference was for South African journalists, the issues that came out of it are of importance to all journalists south of the Sahara as the issues are the same across the region.

While there has generally been a lot of improvement in the covering of health issues in the region by both electronic and print media, with almost every newspaper or news bulletin having one health story, especially on HIV and AIDS, per copy or edition, there are still many issues that need to be addressed.

Experts attending the conference, such as the Wits School of Journalism, the Media Monitoring Project and editors of big media houses like IRIN PlusNews, said it was important for the media to continuously work on their reporting skills so that they can become effective communicators.

Below are some of the key questions that all journalists ought to ask themselves:

-Do you rely heavily on copy provided by experts? This includes Government communication, press releases and research findings.
-If so, have you asked yourself what your experts are experts on, and whether their expertise will be of relevance to your writing and to your audience?
-Are you the type that just gets a research paper from an expert and goes to bed with the story?
-Are we as journalists doing our own research?
-Are Internet sources always correct?
-Are you looking for underlying issues and values out of the stories that you come across? For instance, if the story is that the public health sector is crumbling, have you ever looked at why this is so?
It seems that the private health sector is always good - no queues, and prompt and efficient service – have you ever wondered why?

-Don’t you think looking at all these issues would make good reading while at the same time educating and lobbying for change and action in crucial sectors?

- How much attention are you giving to educating your audience in your story?
- Is there any educational content?
- As journalists, it is of crucial importance for us to ask ourselves what we aim to achieve with the stories we cover and the way we cover them - for example that good piece of journalism where one gets someone living with HIV or cancer to open up and speak about his or her life.
- Does it seek to establish how many sexual partners the source had before they realised they were infected? If so, do you seek to educate your readers on the dangers of having too many sexual partners, or do you aim to show that this person, your “source”, deserves to be infected because they have been careless?
- What is the underlying motive of your story?
- Is it to inform, educate or entertain?
- Is it to sensationalise to push up sales or push up sales and inform at the same time?

-If, as journalists, we ask those key questions we will come up with better stories

Some fertile ground for news this week includes: looking at the public health sector: what is going on it in your respective country and area? --How many resources is your government putting into the health sector? Perhaps the private sector or civil society is supporting the health sector in some way?