"Most papers belong to the opposition front. Most are activist," Klaaste says. "You can't even talk about objectivity." Faced with an oppressive system of apartheid, based on the belief that Divine Will sanctions rule by 13 per cent of the nation's inhabitants, and supported by a battery of more than 20 laws controlling journalism, few papers even try. Instead reporters take every opportunity to expose government corruption and denounce apartheid, often going to prison themselves for their actions.

For the Black papers, this outspoken criticism is a fairly recent development. "Before the '70s, Black newspapers were mostly sensationalistic and apologetic in tone to the establishment," Kaaste explains. Then the independence of Mazambique and the defeat of South Africa in Angola activated Blacks politically. "Our papers began to assume a different tone. They became an articulation of Black aspirations," the journalist adds.

The Soweto riots of 1976 increased the importance of Black papers, drew Black political leaders and the papers closer together, and brought the press coverage world-wide attention. "With the riots of '76, Black reporters came into real prominence. The police shootings, the demonstrations, the arrests, all these happened where Black reporters lived. White reporters couldn't even go into those areas because they'd have been killed. We gained a hell of a lot of respect," Klaaste says.

However, the new image Black journalists gained among world reporters and their own leaders only increased the difficulties under which they and their white English-speaking counterparts labor. Today a Defense Act prevents reporters from writing anything pertaining to the military without permission from the Commissioner of Defense. An inquest act forbids stories containing anything except the verdict of an inquest, and a Prison Act regulates reports on prisons, prisoners and prison life.

BUT THE MOST DANGEROUS regulation is the Act of Suppression of Communism and its accompanying Terror Act. The suppression law defines communism vaguely as anything that is anti-government. Under the Terror Act, any person may be arrested and imprisoned without being charged.

This legislation puts South African journalists under constraints of a kind Western journalists rarely face. Many stories must be approved by government and military officials before publication. "With everyone in the business trying to do the same thing, this is incredibly time-consuming. Sometimes we just take chances and report the stuff," Klaaste says. Those who break the laws face vicious fines and imprisonment.

Still Klaaste says this control has not dampened the spirit of would-be journalists. "The whole country has a violent psychosis," he says. "You can go to jail for anything, and the youth nowadays are very brave and very angry."