You are not alone...

By Thomas Henning

Growing up in a small New England town, I had a privileged childhood. I grew up in a small town where everyone knew each other.

As a young child, Phil, the owner of the local grocery store, would always ask me how I was or acknowledge me for something that I was involved in. Mary, an elderly woman who lived on the street I walked every morning to school, would always leave a bowl of water and plate of food for my dog, Fuzzy (yes, Fuzzy). Then there was Chief Brodley, a family friend, who would come into my family’s restaurant and make sure that everything was okay when he knew my brother and I were working.

One day my family got the call that every one fears. My brother had been in a car accident on his way to school and was killed. My family was devastated. My parents could barely function and my brothers and I were old enough to understand but not equipped to make all the necessary decisions. The people in my small town, both friends and associates, came together. They were there every step of the process, never intrusive and always supportive.

From a very young age, I understood the power of community. Community has the ability to help make a person feel whole and part of something larger than themselves. Community has the power to be present during the laughter and the tears of a person’s life. Community can rally around a person on the brink, stand beside them, walk through the fire with them, and successfully come out the other side.

I think it is that sense of community that Cable Positive’s Employee Assistance Fund, administered through The Actors’ Fund, provides that makes it so powerful for people.

People like Tanya, a 52-year old woman living with HIV since 1997. Since 2000, she has worked as an Advertising Coordinator for a cable company in northern California. She is a single mother with three children (ages 14, 16, and 21), and has been able to support herself and her children for most of the duration of her experience with HIV.

Still, she has battled several periods of severe illness, requiring two applications for short-term disability assistance through the State of California. In the more recent case, she was hospitalized several times over three years for meningitis and finally had to apply for help. Both times, the Fund was able to help her financially while her claim was being evaluated by the State.

This assistance from Cable Positive prevented her eviction in both circumstances, first in 2003 and again in 2006. Her social worker at The Actors' Fund advocated with her landlord throughout the process each time, and has helped her establish a more stable relationship with the management company. The Fund has also has stepped in occasionally to provide Tanya with food vouchers from a local grocery store so that she can buy food for her family during periods of unusual financial stress.

Community is a powerful thing. I think the employees of the cable industry really understand that. You can see it in the work of Cable Positive’s chapters. You can see it in the partnerships that develop through the Tony Cox Community Fund. Most importantly, you can feel it when you talk to people in both the HIV/AIDS Community and the cable industry who share with me why they are committed to Cable Positive’s mission to address HIV/AIDS.

I am Left Asking...

By Thomas Henning

Last year, it is estimated that 2.1 million children under the age of 15 were living with HIV. Around the world, 5.4 million young people are living with HIV. Beyond that, over 15 million children under 18 have lost one, if not both, of their parents due to AIDS and those numbers don’t address issues related to the epidemic, issues like deepening poverty, stigma, access to health care, and lack of access to education that millions more deal with on a daily basis.

There is no question that a greater emphasis needs to be place on HIV prevention. Young people need information; information that is accurate, age-appropriate, and in a culturally relevant-voice that they can hear and relate to.

It is also important that they receive that information in an environment that is inviting, engaging, and protective. An environment where they can talk openly about the risky behavior they, and their peers, may engage in and what they can do to be better advocates for those they care for, including themselves.

Cable can, and does, play a critical role in getting HIV information to young people. Some networks do it much better than others. Some are the example of what can be done to help change the course of this epidemic while others fall short.

I remember the first time I saw HIV-related programming. It was early on in the epidemic and the images that I saw, the story that I was told, stayed with and helped to re-enforce the fear and stigma that the media had helped develop in me, through their reporting.

I was alone when I watched the program. I didn’t have the opportunity to engage in a conversation with someone about what I saw. The next day, I didn’t have a peer group that was open to discussing what I saw.

My school’s HIV prevention efforts were not engaging or inviting. They were shame-based, ill-informed attempts to keep me “on the right track.”

The framework for building the tools to educate and advocate for myself was not there. It wasn’t there in my school, on the playground, or in the home. Of course, that was 1985 and things are different 23 years later. The question is, how different?

In this country, are school-based HIV prevention efforts as sophisticated as they can be? Are families as pro-active as they can be to equip their children with the tools needed to be strong self-advocates? Is media doing all it can to increase HIV education and prevention efforts?

Youth are mobilizing to address the epidemic proving that they themselves can be a powerful resource when it comes to education and prevention efforts. Peer educators acting as mentors in their communities. Online communities where people can share challenges and life experiences and draw from each other’s knowledge and support, outrage and fear, and belief in the possibility of a better tomorrow.

My question is: Why has media programming not kept up with the pace that young people are setting? Media has long been acknowledged as having the power to impact behavioral changes among consumers. Behavioral changes are the most powerful weapons that young people have against HIV.

1 out of 4 young people rank AIDS their top concern. It is understandable given the fact that 1 out of every 2 new infections occur in young people ages 15-24.

Young people ages 13-25, or “Millennials” as marketing professional call them, are one of the most important and socially conscious consumers, over 70 million strong, spending approximately $172 billion per year and heavily influencing many adult consumer buying choices.

From a simple business standpoint, doing right in the world is also doing right by this important consumer—a consumer that, according to a Cone study, 8 out of 10 times will work for a company that cares about how it affects or contributes to society.

According to that same study, 69% of Millennials consider a company's social and environmental commitment when deciding where to shop, and 83% will trust a company more if it is socially/environmentally responsible.

So then why the scarcity of HIV-related programming on those shows that target that market? Why the scarcity of HIV-related documentaries and news coverage from those networks that target that market?

Again, there are some strong examples of networks that understand that doing good not only improves the communities served but can also improve the company’s bottom line. Looking at the media landscape I am left asking “Is enough being done? Can more be done?”

A VACCINE AGAINST IGNORANCE & FEAR

By Steve Villano

Scientists, infectious disease doctors and public health advocates were hit with a double-whammy over the past few weeks.

In the valiant quest for a vaccine to prevent the spread of AIDS, the most promising AIDS Vaccine candidate in years failed in two major clinical trials which the entire medical world was watching. Some of those receiving the vaccine in clinical trials conducted in Africa, may have become more likely to become infected with the HIV virus than those who did not.

It was, as HIV virus co-discoverer Dr. Robert Gallo said, "the equivalent of the Challenger disaster in AIDS research," but even that only represented one facet of the tragedy. Another damaging aspect of the dire development was that it reinforced an already powerful prejudice that exists within communities of color that HIV/AIDS was deliberately engineered to kill black people. It's an unfounded conspiracy theory--believed by large segments of the black community worldwide--that dates back to the Tuskegee syphilis experiments in the U.S, and the polio vaccine clinical trials done in Africa decades ago. In fact, in many mostly Muslim nations, polio has made a deadly resurgence, because many in those countries believe that the polio vaccine is nothing more than a Western plot to infect whole populations with AIDS. Consequently, there are enormous challenges ahead for not only the discovery of a viable AIDS vaccine, but for distributing vaccines that have already been developed for diseases that can be controlled or eliminated, like polio or measles.

That's why its so maddening that at almost the precise moment the grim news about the AIDS vaccine was being made public, a group of well-to-do women in San Diego, California--where a measles outbreak is occurring--are refusing to have their children vaccinated for basic childhood diseases, out of a completely unproven fear that such vaccines cause autism.

One of the San Diego mothers conceded that by not having her child vaccinated against measles--which kills 250,000 children a year in countries where the vaccine doesn't reach everyone--she knew she was putting other children at risk. Another acknowledged the existence of "measles parties," where uninfected children are brought by their parents and intentionally exposed to children with measles, so they can be "naturally" exposed to the disease.

The bitter irony here is that in a rich, fortunate place like San Diego, California, where citizens have access to some of the best health care in the country, and childhood vaccines are in abundant supply, an unfounded, not-medically supported myth is circulating and putting everyone's child at risk of being infected with a virus for which we have already discovered the vaccine.

Don't we have enough work to do on AIDS--in finding a viable vaccine, that could save millions of lives--to be subject to such know-nothing, anti-science nonsense that threatens the health of all of us? Perhaps the first vaccine we need to develop is the one which eradicates ignorance and fear.

Non-Profits and Media Outlets

Non-profit organizations are forever strategizing how best to get their message before the public and media companies are always assessing the role they are able to play in supporting the communities they serve.

What do the two have in common? They both are trying to figure out how to serve their clients, and fine tune doing that successfully. The motivation may be different but the goals are, in broad strokes, the same. Lately, this common denominator has been on my mind.

Each year, Cable Positive hosts an awards ceremony that honors, in thirteen categories, those networks that provide outstanding HIV-related programming in the cable industry entitled The Positively Outstanding Programming (POP) Awards.

Through the Tony Cox Community Fund, Cable Positive provides grants to local AIDS Service Organizations who partner with their local cable system to use media as an advocacy and outreach tool.

There is no question that HIV/AIDS is still an epidemic. There is no question that media can play a role in helping to change the attitudes and behaviors of consumers. There is a question, at least in my mind, as to why media isn’t being used more, and more effectively, to address the issue of HIV/AIDS.

Although I see some exceptional examples, I am not seeing nearly as many as I would like to or think I could be seeing. I know that there are many reasons for this and it isn’t my intent to minimize the challenges that exist for both the non-profits and entertainment industry.

It would be my wish, as long as HIV and AIDS exist, that I have an office full of POP Award entries and media advocacy is second nature to all non-profits--regardless of size.

I may have a way to go before I get my wish but that is one of the most exciting elements of being part of the Cable Positive team—the belief that media can and is absolutely a force of change in this epidemic.

It is a fundamental core belief of mine that anyone can make a difference if they have the drive and opportunity. It is exciting to be part of an organization, and an industry, that not only encourages that drive but pushes you to continue to create those opportunities; opportunities that encourages and cultivates that drive in others.

Cable Positive’s Youth AIDS Media Institute is a perfect example of that but you will have to wait for my next entry to hear more on that.

Knocking Down Stereotypes, Just by Standing There

There are some people whose very lives—their very existence—are a victory, an affirmation of life, and a bold statement against simplistic stereotypes that harm all of us.

Regan Hofmann, Editor in Chief of POZ Magazine, is one of those people. Her fundamental honesty and compassion, and her bravery in living each day and tackling the tough issue of stigma toward HIV positive people serve as a profound profile in courage. Couple that with Regan’s keen understanding of the power of media—print and all forms of electronic media—to educate and inform people about the disease, and you can perhaps begin to see the enormous importance she plays in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Regan Hofmann is a key partner of Cable Positive’s. She has been HIV positive since 1996, and she stunned the Cable industry at the Cable Positive Annual Benefit on March 4, simply by acting as our host for the evening and speaking passionately about her status as an HIV positive person.

The power of Regan’s presence as an HIV positive HIV/AIDS activist and educator, is not only in the fact that she is “living with, living with, not dying from the disease.” It is also who Regan is. She is a young, soft-spoken, heterosexual white woman, striking in her appearance and composure that smashes every single stereotype that many want to believe about people with AIDS. She is a Board Member of the National Association of People with AIDS, a Board Member of the Names Project, has appeared on “Oprah”, is a part of Kenneth Cole’s new media campaign to raise HIV/AIDS awareness, and appeared, along with Gloria Reuben, in Cable Positive new documentary “Positive Voices: Women & HIV,” which has aired on Showtime Networks, and is being requested by hundreds of AIDS organizations across the country.

Just by standing before a large audience, or appearing on television, or writing in the pages of her beloved POZ Magazine, Regan Hofmann is a force for change because she is living evidence that HIV is not a “gay” disease or a “black” disease, or a “third-world” disease, but a matter for the entire human family to face.

She told the Cable industry leaders attending the Cable Positive Power Awards two weeks ago that “by openly discussing HIV, you de-stigmatize what is nothing more than a retrovirus; when we can see AIDS, and talk about it, we can heal people, and prevent others from getting it.” And this brave leader, activist & AIDS educator had high praise for the corporate social responsibility practiced by the Cable industry in this fight: “Your incredible efforts move us ever closer to the day when we will celebrate not only the power and the passion of this brave industry, but also one day, maybe, the end of AIDS.”

Powerful words from a courageous person whose sheer presence makes an astounding statement against the stigma surrounding people who are “living with” this disease.

Sex & Sexuality

In the midst of a red-hot & historic Democratic Presidential primary campaign there are very few things that could knock Candidates Clinton & Obama out of the top-story position on local and national news programs. Few things, that is, except sex & sexuality.

With New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigning this week because he allegedly purchased sex from women through a high-priced prostitution ring, New York’s tabloid newspapers had a field day and titillation topped every hour on TV. Cable and broadcast news stations jumped at the chance to delve into this deliciously devilish development, pulling out lawyers, sex doctors and even the ex-wives of former politicians from their closet of props.

Probably the most egregious example of over-reaching in an effort to show some empathy for Eliot Spitzer’s shocked and sorrowful spouse Silda, was a decision by CNN and NBC—as well as other news organizations—to make Deena McGreevey, the ex-wife of former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, the poster child for spurned spouses.

Comparing the still-unfolding Spitzer situation to the McGreevey resignation is a complete failure on the part of each news organization to separate the most important facts of each case, in the stampede to their studios to find a sympathetic ex-spouse. In the Spitzer case, New York’s governor is alleged to have—over a period of 10 years at a cost of some $80,000—purchased sex from women through a prostitution ring, with some of the transactions occurring as interstate commerce. Additionally, his secretive method of payments have raised prosecutorial and banking questions alike, and he may have used state resources to travel to and from his liaisons.

McGreevey’s case was not about sex for hire through an illegal prostitution ring, but about a same-sex orientation which he could no longer hide. Granted, McGreevey—like Spitzer—may have used state vehicles or expenses to help facilitate his dates, and he found a job for his alleged lover on the New Jersey State payroll. While McGreevey’s judgement may have been bad, he did not act illegally. By lazily lumping his case in with Spitzer’s, news organizations—wittingly or not—equated his actions with Spitzer’s, and by association, put homosexuality on the same page as prostitution, which not-so-subtly stamps same-sex love as something illicit.

That kind of stigmatizing of same-sex relationships and of gays—in the same breath with prostitutes—has life and death consequences, as this year’s 10^th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s murder shows us all too clearly. As if to underscore the danger, just this week an Oklahoma State Representative told a political group that “the gay community posed a bigger threat than either terrorism or Islam.”

I am not a fan of Jim McGreevey’s. I think his marriage to his second wife, Deena—after he already knew he was gay-- was a cruel hoax upon her, calculated to protect his political career at her expense, and at the expense of the truth of who he was. Gay Americans have a much richer list of heroes, including Harvey Milk, David Mixner, Ellen DeGeneres, Melissa Etheridge, Terrance McNally, Elton John and Cole Porter, among thousands of others in towns and communities around the world.

Gay celebrities and artists like Tony Kushner, B.D. Wong, Nathan Lane, Isaac Mizrachi, & Carson Kressley have courageously and generously donated their time and talent to Cable Positive to do messages of HIV/AIDS education and awareness seen in more than 80 million households. And, fearless Cable industry leaders like Logo’s President Brian Graden, being honored by GLAAD next week, and Here tv! Regent Entertainment President/CEO Paul Colichman, make enormous contributions to the lives of members of the GLBT community each hour of every day through the pioneering programming their networks provide.

In fighting stigma and prejudice aimed squarely at the gay community, news organizations, networks and cable systems have a lot more work to do, much more carefully and consistently than its been done.

An excerpt from my 2008 Power Awards speech:

THIS IS QUITE AN HISTORIC NIGHT—NOT JUST HERE, BUT AROUND THE COUNTRY. RIGHT NOW, IN TEXAS AND OHIO, PEOPLE ARE POURING OUT TO THE POLLS TO MAKE HISTORY IN THIS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION YEAR—THE AIR IS POSITIVELY CRACKLING WITH UNLIMITED POSSIBILITIES.

BUT, 75 YEARS AGO TONIGHT—MARCH 4, 1933—THERE WAS ANOTHER STARKER, DARKER POSSIBILITY IN THE AIR, AND A LEADER WHO CONQUERED A PHYSICAL DISABILITY ADDRESSED THAT FEAR:

“WE NOW REALIZE,” FDR SAID, “ AS WE HAVE NEVER BEFORE, OUR INTERDEPENDENCE ON EACH OTHER; THAT WE CANNOT MERELY TAKE, BUT WE MUST GIVE AS WELL.”

FAST FORWARD FROM FDR TO OUR DVRS, TO DAVOS, SWITZERLAND, SIX WEEKS AGO—THE SONG & THE SINGER ARE DIFFERENT, BUT THE MELODY LINGERS ON:

“AS I SEE IT” SAID BILL GATES, HELENE GAYLE’S FORMER COLLEAGUE, “THERE ARE 2 GREAT FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE: SELF INTEREST & CARING FOR OTHERS. I LIKE TO CALL THIS NEW SYSTEM CREATIVE CAPITALISM,” HE CONTINUED, “WHERE GOVERNMENTS, BUSINESS & NON-PROFITS WORK TOGETHER TO STRETCH THE REACH OF MARKET FORCES, SO THAT MORE PEOPLE CAN MAKE A PROFIT, OR GAIN RECOGNITION DOING WORK THAT EASES THE WORLD’S INEQUITIES.”

SIXTEEN YEARS EARLIER, CABLE POSITIVE FOUNDER JEFF BERNSTEIN—WHO IS NOW USING HIS E-BAY MARKETING COMPANY TO RAISE MONEY & AWARENESS FOR OUR CAUSE—JOINED WITH A HANDFUL OF CABLE INDUSTRY COLLEAGUES, TO MARRY THOSE TWO GREAT FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE: SELF INTEREST & CARING FOR OTHERS, AND MOBILIZE THE POWER, REACH, CREATIVITY & TALENT OF THIS INFLUENTIAL INDUSTRY TO “EASE THE WORLD’S INEQUITIES” AND FIGHT HIV/AIDS.

ONE BILLION DOLLARS OF PRO-BONO AIRTIME LATER—AND $20 MILLION DOLLARS OF DONATIONS THAT HAVE TOUCHED THOUSANDS OF LIVES—INCLUDING SOME 275 AIDS SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS IN 40 STATES---AND, AS RECENTLY AS YESTERDAY 3 MORE IN SOUTH AFRICA—THE COLLECTIVE CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF CABLE POSITIVE STANDS AS A MODEL FOR INDUSTRIES AROUND THE WORLD TO USE THEIR POWER FOR GOOD.

IN OUR LIFETIMES, WE HAVE BEEN GRACED WITH—AND GRIEVED OVER—FRIENDS & FAMILY & COLLEAGUES WHOSE EVERY BREATH WAS INFUSED WITH THIS INTUITION—OF USING THEIR POWER FOR GOOD. IN HIS BOOK, “DAYS OF GRACE” ARTHUR ASHE DESCRIBES A LETTER WRITTEN TO HIM BY A 5^TH GRADER, WHO, AFTER READING OF FDR’S MARCH OF DIMESCAMPAIGN TO FIGHT POLIO, ASKS ASHE—LOCKED IN THE MATCH OF HIS LIFE WITH AIDS:

“CAN YOU FIND A WAY TO ASK ALL AMERICANS TO SEND A DOLLAR BILL TO FIGHT AIDS, AND WE COULD CALL IT THE MARCH OF DOLLARS?”

IT IS A STORY—A CHALLENGE, REALLY—OF PROFOUND SIGNIFICANCE TO ME, SINCE MY MOTHER—WHO PASSED AWAY JUST ELEVEN WEEKS AGO--LIVED WITH POLIO & PARALYSIS FOR 92 YEARS. SHE PERSONIFIED WHAT JONATHAN LARSEN MEANT WHEN HE WROTE THE LYRICAL LESSON IN THE MUSICAL “RENT” OF SOMEONE—“LIVING WITH, LIVING WITH, LIVING WITH, NOT DYING FROM DISEASE,” EVEN THOUGH THE DISEASE HE WROTE ABOUT WAS AIDS, NOT POLIO. THAT DID NOT MATTER—MY MOTHER SAW NO DIFFERENCE—IT WAS THE WILL TO LIVE, TO NEVER GIVE UP OR GIVE IN OR GIVE OUT-- TO USE YOUR GIFTS TO HELP OTHERS, THAT GAVE YOUR LIFE MEANING.

I THINK BACK TO WATCHING AN HBO MOVIE WITH HER ABOUT FDR’S STRUGGLE WITH POLIO. SHE SAT IN HER WHEELCHAIR, AS SHE WATCHED HIM HIDE THE EXISTENCE OF HIS, AND SHE REMEMBERED BEING KEPT OUT OF THE PUBLIC SWIMMING POOLS IN GREENWICH VILLAGE, WHERE SHE WAS BORN, BECAUSE PEOPLE WERE AFRAID THEY MIGHT “CATCH” THE POLIO VIRUS. “JUST LIKE AIDS,” SHE SAID. “JUST LIKE AIDS.” SO WHAT DID SHE DO? SHE TAUGHT HERSELF TO SWIM IN THE OCEAN, AND RAISED FOUR CHILDREN WITH HER ONE “GOOD” ARM---“LIVING WITH, LIVING WITH, NOT DYING FROM DISEASE,” LIKE MANY, MANY OTHERS WHO HAVE TOUCHED US ACUTELY— LIKE PAST CABLE POSITIVE HONOREE JIM ROBBINS AND FRED DRESSLER, WHOM WE’LL NEVER LOSE AS LONG AS WE HONOR THE WAY THEY LIVED, AND CARED AND LOVED.

I AM REMINDED OF A LITTLE KNOWN SPEECH DELIVERED BY ANOTHER OF MY HEROES, 40 YEARS AGO LAST MONTH, TO THE VERY DAY:

“ IF ANY OF YOU ARE AROUND WHEN I HAVE TO MEET MY DAY, I DON’T WANT A LONG FUNERAL,” HE SAID. “I’D LIKE FOR SOMEONE TO MENTION THAT DAY, THAT I TRIED TO GIVE MY LIFE SERVING OTHERS; THAT I TRIED TO LOVE SOMEBODY.”

“YES, IF YOU WANT TO SAY THAT I WAS A DRUM MAJOR, SAY THAT I WAS A DRUM MAJOR FOR JUSTICE—A DRUM MAJOR FOR PEACE. ALL OF THE OTHER SHALLOW THINGS WILL NOT MATTER. I WON’T HAVE ANY MONEY TO LEAVE BEHIND. I WON’T HAVE THE FINE & LUXURIOUS THINGS OF LIFE TO LEAVE BEHIND.”

“BUT,” SAID DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., “I JUST WANT TO LEAVE A COMMITTED LIFE BEHIND.”

A COMMITTED LIFE------THAT IS THE KIND OF POWER & PASSION THAT DRIVES CABLE POSITIVE, AND MANY OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS ROOM TONIGHT.

OUR THREE HONOREES EXEMPLIFY THIS ETHIC, THESE GOOD LIVES OF ACTION, AND TEACH US HOW WE ARE ALL “LIVING WITH, LIVING WITH—NOT DYING FROM THIS DISEASE,” AND HOW, TOGETHER, LIKE FDR & BILL GATES & DR. KRIM & DR. KING, AND YES, EVEN A LITTLE, WHEELCHAIR BOUND ITALIAN WOMAN LIKE MARGARET JULIA VILLANO—HOW WE CAN ALL MAKE THIS LIFE MUCH BETTER.

THAT POWER, THAT STRENGTH, THAT PASSION TO “EASE THE WORLD’S INEQUITIES” IS IN EACH OF US. WE JUST HAVE TO USE IT.