<I>New York Times</i> makes AIDS content available on AEGIS Web site (15560)

The New York Times has agreed to share its 24-year AIDS news archive with San Juan Capistrano, Calif.-based Web site AIDS Education Global Information System (www.aegis.org), the world's largest free Internet site for AIDS information, according to San Francisco AIDS activist Michael Petrelis and AEGIS founder Sister Mary Elizabeth. "I'm grateful to the Times's executives for their humanitarian gesture," said Sister Mary Elizabeth in a press statement. "Visitors to AEGIS.org will be able to search 24 years of AIDS stories, analyses, and editorials for free."

Sister Mary Elizabeth had asked the Times for AEGIS access to its AIDS reporting for the past 12 years, but the newspaper had always refused her requests. However, after Petrelis bought a single share of stock in the newspaper and spoke at the publication's annual shareholders meeting about the importance of access to the Times's archives--and Sister Mary Elizabeth's father adopted the same tactic--the publication's publisher and board of directors changed their minds. They agreed this month to open the newspaper's archives free of change to AEGIS.

Dozens of Times stories are currently available on the AEGIS Web site at www.aegis.org/news/nyt. Additional articles will be uploaded on the site over the next few months.

Petrelis says he plans to attend the Times annual shareholders meeting on April 26 in New York to thank publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. for sharing the AIDS archive. Petrelis says he also will push for improvement in AIDS coverage in the Times, especially in the areas of HIV research and epidemiology.