Black and White News
Black and White News The government of South Africa keeps a careful watch on English-language and Afrikaans-language newspapers in that country. "We can't put a picture of a jailed person in the...
...We're not allowed to quote banned persons...
...Nonetheless, "Whether or not there is justification for splitting editions, the way it is done has the effect of enhancing resentment among blacks and simultaneously enhancing complacency among whites...
...Frontline, an anti-apartheid monthly in Johannesburg, spotlighted this practice in a recent issue...
...Whites buying an issue of the Star one typical day found "a picture of three of South Africa's former beauty queens, 'all wearing their years beautifully' " at a gala ball, Frontline wrote...
...The white version of the Star carried a similar report under the "less emotive" headline, Removal of Mogopa's People Is Complete...
...Frontline found that "where the Khu-malos are reading about crippled Poppie Buthelezi—shot, we are left in no doubt, by the police—proclaiming that the System is the people's enemy, there [in the white edition] you are reading about plans to build a new airport and new roads in the Eastern Transvaal...
...Newspaper sales would drop if blacks were treated to more white news, and "white readers, too, would be turned off by more focus on black affairs," Frontline acknowledged...
...The prestigious Rand Daily Mail, Johannesburg Star, and Pretoria News publish different editions for their white and black readers every day...
...The Star's front-page headline in the black edition said, Relatives Missing After Removal...
...But in the Star's "Africa" edition, sold in Soweto, the corresponding space on the same page was occupied by "a picture of teen-age school kids hearing about the structural violence perpetrated by the System...
...We can't put a picture of a jailed person in the paper," explains Salie de Swardt, an assistant editor at Beeld, a Johannesburg-based Afrikaans daily...
...W.S...
...That is absolutely the last thing South Africa needs, and it is especially ironic that it comes from the very newspapers which make the biggest play of the great need for better mutual understanding...
...In addition, there are laws governing articles about military matters and "strategic materials"—for example, oil...
...But economics, not censorship, seems to determine the basic shape of South Africa's leading newspapers...
Vol. 48 • October 1984 • No. 12
