Wednesday, November 30, 2011

A local connection for World AIDS Day

Tomorrow is World AIDS Day, and in advance, I wrote about a Memphian who has lived with the virus since the early 1980s. I met with him Tuesday morning and wrote the story Tuesday afternoon before going out on another assignment.

Some of what we talked about is still processing. I wish I'd had more time to think, and to write, and to think about what I was writing.

What I like most about my job, I think, is meeting these people that, whether they know it or not, have the ability to heighten our sensibilities. And they're trusting enough to let someone else (like me) write about them, without conditions, and to open themselves up for public scrutiny.

Comments are rarely disabled on CA pages, but they were for this story, and I think it was the right call. The man I interviewed agreed to tell me about his HIV/AIDS status, and in so doing, he opened that secret part of his life to our world of readers. I didn't want him to be punished for it in the anonymous commenting section.

No comments:

Post a Comment