by Lilly Keller
One of the first lessons I learned as a student journalist was only to report what I could unequivocally verify. At the time, I found it funny that my professor dedicated an entire lesson to such an intuitive concept. Wasn’t the very essence of journalism to make the truth accessible to the public?
Before winter break, the idea of resorting to deception to sell a story had never crossed my mind. Then I began reading “And the Band Played On” by American journalist Randy Shilts.
Published by St. Martin’s Press in 1987, the over 600-page book is one of the first comprehensive histories of the AIDS epidemic. Built on Shilts’s relentless reporting at The Advocate and San Francisco Chronicle, the book delves into the people and politics that played a crucial role in bringing the AIDS virus under control.
Although dense at times with complex medical terms and harrowing images of young men whittled away by disease and ignored by their government, I couldn’t put the book down. However, the narrative of Canadian flight attendant Gaétan Dugas haunted me.
Characterized by Shilts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as “patient zero,” Dugas is depicted as deliberately spreading AIDS and eventually labeled as “the person who brought AIDS to North America.” Without a second thought, I, like readers in 1987, bought into the narrative and felt contempt toward Dugas. Why would Shilts make up something so horrific?
Shortly after the book’s publication, Dugas, who died in 1984, became synonymous with front-page headlines. “The Appalling Saga of Patient Zero” read TIMES magazine, “The Man Who Gave Us AIDS” announced The New York Post and “The Columbus of AIDS” displayed The National Review. However, Shilts’s portrayal of Dugas is knowingly distorted. From omitting anecdotes of Dugas refusing sex due to his AIDS status and telling friends, whom Shilts interviewed for the book that he would keep Dugas anonymous, Shilts constructed a version of Dugas that diverged from reality, presenting a characterization so sensational that it would capture the attention of the general public.
Trust from sources is essential for accurate news, especially when portraying marginalized communities. By betraying sources’ trust without warning, Shilts perpetuates a cycle of apathy and insensitivity—an attitude that prevented the media from taking the epidemic seriously.
Furthermore, the CDC study that Shilts relied on initially identified Dugas as patient O, indicating his origin as outside California rather than as the virus’s epicenter in North America. However, a typo turned O into zero, contributing to the confusion in the paper trail. Still, without fact-checking or contacting the study’s lead investigator, Bill Darrow, Shilts reported on the information at face value, contributing to the confusion and distortion of the truth.
Years after Shilts’s death in 1994, the book’s editor, Michael Denneny, would confess to consciously vilifying Dugas in the book and its publicity campaign to stimulate sales.
“It’s the worst kind of yellow journalism. I admit I got my hands dirty,” Denney said in an interview with Xtra magazine. “Randy was horrified. He didn’t want to do it but I pointed out to him that if we didn’t no one would read the book and we’d sell 5,000 copies that would end up collecting dust on the shelves.”
As journalists, we must acknowledge our position of power and consider it critically. Shilts’s reporting for “And The Band Played On” rendered visible an illness and the hundreds of thousands of lives it took yet perpetuated a false narrative. When readers cannot trust journalists and their work unequivocally, society risks embracing misinformation, rendering our journalistic purpose useless.
In the 36 years since “And The Band Played On” was published, there has been no correction or official acknowledgment of Shilts’s and St. Martin’s Press falsehoods beyond Denneny’s admission. Gaétan Dugas’s exoneration through genetic testing doesn’t negate the harm depicted in his narrative, serving as a stark reminder of the damage caused when journalists prioritize acclaim over truth.
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