Nigeria, July 14 -- As COVID-19 becomes the most intensely covered virus in history, there are important lessons to be drawn from the media's reporting of another global pandemic: HIV/Aids.

Whose lives the world deems worthy of saving depends, at least partly, on the stories that journalists tell. This was one of the findings of my research into British media coverage of Africa's Aids pandemic, in which I analysed 1,281 news reports between 1987 and 2008.

At the height of that pandemic, journalists helped to expose how intellectual property laws and the business models of big pharmaceutical companies disregarded the health needs of those living in poorer countries. Such reporting played an important role in creating the political moment...