This is a graph showing the average number of articles mentioning HIV/Aids per issue of the broadsheet newspapers in the UK between 1990 and 2010.
As you can see* it has remained quite stable - and has stayed roughly somewhere between 0.5 and 1 article per issue.
It dipped just below 0.5 at the start of 2010, but this is not unusual.
There's the occasional spike - if averaging close to two items an issue can be considered a spike - maybe there'll be one when they get round to counting the special edition of The Independent edited by Elton John.
So not much has changed.
Everything looks ok.
Nothing to see here.
So why has The Pink Paper run a story titled; 'Media coverage of HIV and AIDS falls by seventy per cent'
We do get a qualifier; "Media coverage on HIV/AIDS has fallen by more than 70 per cent in developed countries over the last 20 years, according to an international team of researchers."
But why didn't the journalist - Peter Lloyd, predictably - take a few minutes or more to try and find some data for the UK?
Because Peter Lloyd's bylined news story is as per usual - just a cut-and-paste of a press release from The Trends in Sustainability project.
Fagburn could deluge you on a daily basis with examples of how Pink Paper and Pink News just reprint press releases pretty much verbatim and pass them off as news stories, but it takes a special talent-bypass to do this and completely miss what's relevant to your readership.
Anyway, Trends In Sustainability is an interesting project - have a look round their new website.
It's a shame Pinkpaper.com couldn't be bothered.
* For a sharper version of the graph go to www.trendsinsustainability.com/onlineanalysis
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