Abstract
The author of this article is a young American at present studying in Cambridge. Last year he spent six months working as a reporter in South Africa. Here he gives an account of his experience in a country which has over 20 different laws restricting the freedom of the press and where ‘the journalists are mostly white, the newspapers mostly interested in the affairs of the white community, the capital behind the papers is white, the readership is white and, above all, the perspective is white’. Yet all this does not fully explain why the newspapers do not carry all the news that should be printed. Peter Bernstein reveals some of the complex problems behind South African censorship and self-censorship.