The media and AIDS: health elite perspectives of coverage.

Most writers assessing AIDS have been critical of the media's coverage of this epidemic. To ascertain the views of key elites on media coverage of AIDS, the authors surveyed chief state public health officers, chairs of legislative health committees, and directors of hospital associations. In general, these groups tended to reject criticisms that media handling of AIDS is unbalanced. Conversely, however, they also generally rate the media as not doing a good job of educating the public about AIDS. The media's success in accurately communicating professional perspectives regarding AIDS might have accounted for their relative lack of independent influence in AIDS policymaking. The media exhibited a "guard dog" role-protecting the health professionals' positions-instead of an agenda-setting role-dictating to the decision-makers what issues they should be addressing.