The Reporter Who Transformed the AIDS Crisis

Click on the audio player above to hear this interview.

Today marks World AIDS Day—about 34 million people globally now live with the HIV virus. Over the years, research, scientific advances, and legal protections have made it easier to live longer and with less stigma and discrimination, but when the first World AIDS Day was commemorated in 1988, HIV and AIDS was much less understood.

Throughout the 1980s, New York Times reporter Jeff Schmalz hid the fact that he was gay from many of his colleagues. It was after he collapsed in the newsroom that he told his bosses he had AIDS—a declaration that would change the way Schmalz, The New York Times, and newspapers nationally began to report on the AIDS epidemic.   

Samuel G. Freedman is an award winning journalist, a columnist for our partner The New York Times, and a professor at Columbia University. Here, he talks to The Takeaway about his latest book and accompanying audio documentary, produced by Kerry Donahue and edited by Ben Shapiro: "Dying Words:  The AIDS Reporting of Jeff Schmalz and How it Transformed the New York Times."  

What you'll learn from this segment:

• How Jeff Schmalz transformed the way the New York Times and other news organizations that covered AIDS. 
• How media coverage of HIV and AIDS has changed in the years since. 
• Where the future of news coverage around HIV and AIDS might go.

Check out the full radio documentary below.