UNAIDS Executive Director and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations Dr. Peter Piot presented on September 17 the "UNAIDS Award for Outstanding Contributions to the AIDS Response" to Professor Li Xiguang, Executive Dean of School of Journalism and Communication of Tsinghua University, as well as Chinese basket ball icon Yao Ming, and UNAIDS Special Representative Serge Dumont, Senior Vice President and President Asia Pacific of Omnicom Group Inc.

Dr. Peter Piot who has been the leader of UNAIDS for 12 years and has observed and supported the AIDS work personally through his many visits to China said: “I am really pleased that the AIDS response has the critical support of sports stars, the business community, media and academia alike. AIDS is so much more than a health issue and without the help of champions like the ones we honour today, we cannot be successful in stopping the spread of AIDS.”

(Dr. Peter Piot delivers a speech)

(Tsinghua Deputy President Chen Jining had a discussion with Dr. Peter Piot )

Li Xiguang is the Vice Director of Tsinghua Comprehensive AIDS Research Center. He said: “Journalists can make an important difference to how people think about AIDS through good reporting. False perceptions need to be overcome by communicating correct information in interesting and innovative ways.”

Every three months for the last five years, a group of 30 journalists and people living with HIV/AIDS would check into a guest houses near Tsinghua Unversity, where they would spend the next three days living, eating and learning together in a workshop “Training Program for Covering HIV/AIDS in China”. Sitting in a Tsinghua classroom, the journalists, media experts and people living with HIV/AIDs will study, learn, actively participate in the lectures, group discussions, games and share their experiences in reporting and fighting HIV/AIDS. Most of the time, in group discussions, the participants living with HIV/AIDS are arguing strongly against the media participants about the unethical, inaccurate and biased reporting of Chinese media in covering HIV/AIDS.

Li Xiguang is China’s leading health journalism educator and his team has also been serving as the country’s top think tank and media policy advisor in public health, such as in the fights against HIA/AIDS, SARS, bird flu and tobacco control.

He has edited and authored a number of educational books such as HIV/AIDS Media Book, Reporting against Stigmas: HIV/AIDS stories from China, A Handbook for Human Rights Reporting and A Handbook for Tobacco Control Reporting.

Tsinghua University’s Comprehensive AIDS Research Center (CARC) is a cross-disciplinary research center co-established by Tsinghua University’s Schools of Medicine, Journalism and Communication, and Humanities and Social Sciences.

(Photo by Guo Haijun)

(From School of Journalism and Communication)