Sensationalism or sensitivity: use of words in stories on acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) by Associated Press Videotext

Although it appeared initially reluctant to cover the story at all, the mainstream press in the United States has supplied almost daily reports on AIDS since the mid-1980s. The author examined four weeks of stories on the Associated Press Videotext service in early 1986 in an effort to evaluate the validity of critics' charges that journalists were over-emphasizing the role of homosexuals in the progress of the disease, and that their stories were laden with negative or sensationalistic terms. The author found little evidence from the words used in the stories of distortion in telling the AIDS story, but speculated that such distortion might be found in selection, editing, and presentation decisions made by gatekeepers.