Page 93 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

82 COMMUNICATION AND CITIZENSHIP

‘Florence Nightingale’ tear-jerkers on the other. Both facets, the terror
and the triumph, are proven box-office hits.
Whatever the courage required to begin coverage of AIDS, the
orchestrating of a campaign, one might argue, can be totally explained
in terms of sheer good business. That first one-hour special in 1983,
Our Worst Fears: the AIDS Epidemic, turned out to be the highest-rated
public affairs show in the history of KPIX, sparking the most hotline
calls to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation since it began. After the
program was repeated, more than one million people viewed it locally,
an enormous number for public affairs in the fifth-ranked US broadcast
market. This program was broadcast by all the Group W stations and
was successfully syndicated from New York to Honolulu. Requests for
videotapes came from as far as Australia and it was ultimately shown
all over the world and domestically by over one hundred companies,
schools, local governments and service associations. 24
From this beginning KPIX went into an all-out effort by 1985 called
‘AIDS Lifeline’: over a four-year period (up to the announcement of the
Emmy) the station presented over 1,000 news reports, not only from
California, but from their own crews filing stories from Australia,
Brussels, Geneva, as well as domestically from coast to coast. The
different celebrity PSAs were expanded to a roster of over sixty. All this
time talk shows, call-ins, additional documentaries were produced as
part of the campaign.
These on-air elements were complemented by an unusual number of
off-air activities. Not just a flyer, but a hefty booklet about AIDS with
lists of helping agencies was published in co-operation with the San
Francisco AIDS Foundation and went into over one half-million copies
in several languages. A further co-operative effort with the Foundation
and a new twist on off-air collateral was the production of an
educational videotape about AIDS made available at local video rental
stores (the Captain Video chain). 25
Off the air, KPIX was a senior partner or instigator of many local
events, from huge walkathons to school ‘safe sex’ programs. KPIX made
sure that its own employment practices did not discriminate against
AIDS patients in terms of workplace, insurance or workmates. 26
By 1985 WBZ-TV in Boston hooked into this campaign and began
doing its own version of the blanket coverage and community outreach
that it had applied so well to other subjects. The national interest led KPIX
to head a national co-op of ultimately over one hundred stations, who
shared AIDS-related news stories by satellite feed. 27