First-hand Reporting Brings Lives Into Focus

Sandeep Junnarkar writes about his new multimedia blog which covers the impact of India’s new patent law on the medical treatment of the country’s HIV-positive population:

I was motivated in large part by my dissatisfaction with the superficial coverage of this issue by the American mainstream press. I wanted to work outside the traditional freelance options of magazines or newspapers so I could allow those affected by AIDS to describe their experiences in their own words. Their lives, I reasoned, should not be reduced to a traditional anecdotal lead and kicker.

Lives in Focus, a multimedia blog, was the result. The project is an effort to document the lives of families struggling to buy anti-retroviral drugs in order to keep a family member healthy, and to show the challenges that stigmatized AIDS patients face while trying to earn enough money to buy lifesaving treatment. My colleague, Srinivas Kuruganti, a photographer, took portraits, while I interviewed on video more than two dozen men, women and children.

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Junnarkar continues:

While most blogs use stories published or broadcast by news organizations as fodder for discussion and debate, Lives in Focus required first-hand reporting. We gathered over 1,500 photographs and 13 hours of video, giving us enough material to update the blog every week.