By Kate Townsend
Director, Black and White and Read All Over |
 Half a million copies of South Africa's Daily Sun are sold every day |
With its gory front pages, South Africa's Daily Sun has become a national, though controversial, phenomenon. This World follows events in its newsroom in the run up to its 1,000th edition.
"So she's saying 'my boyfriend ate my grandson'?" asks Deon du Plessis, the white part-owner of sub-Saharan Africa's biggest selling daily newspaper.
It is the afternoon news conference, and Deon's team is discussing the next day's front page story. "That's what she's saying," affirms Themba Khumale, the black editor.
It is Deon, as usual, who comes up with the headline. "Ok, 'Boyfriend Ate My Baby'!"
Welcome to the extreme world of South Africa's Daily Sun. Its mix of township violence and supernatural stories has won readers who under apartheid had no voice.
But critics say it is portraying a negative image of black South Africans.
The working class black man is the target reader for the Daily Sun. He is known in the office as the man in blue overalls.
'Real stories'
Sun headlines like Girls Who Pee Spoons! and Cursed By an Evil Worm! have revolutionised South Africa's newspaper market since the Daily Sun launched in 2002.
"We've grown from zero to 500,000 copies a day. It gives us four million readers - grown like a mushroom and growing all the time," says chief sub-editor Dennis Smith.
The headlines may seem unbelievable, but the Daily Sun journalists write their stories from encounters with real people on the street.
It is a winter's afternoon and Daily Sun photographer, Jan, is off to a township on the West Rand. He is looking for evidence to establish if an evil spirit is terrorising a woman.
"Some people do believe in this witchcraft thing so that is why they like reading the Daily Sun about these kinds of stories".
Inside the shack, the woman shows what she says is evidence that the evil spirit is still there: burn marks on a seat and curtains: "I go to church, but nothing has changed," she says.
"I've even been to see witch doctors ... they are saying it's a tokoloshe (demon) and they can't get rid of it".
The story appears in the paper that week.
'Explicit reality'
To white Afrikaaner, Deon du Plessis, such supernatural convictions are a world apart from his upbringing, but he is proud that the Daily Sun is the first newspaper in South Africa to headline supernatural stories: "I don't think any Daily Sun reader would say life is only what we can see and touch. There's a very strong spiritual element in this country which it would be foolish to ignore."
But the Daily Sun outrages most white South Africans. They make up just 1% of its readership. They accuse it of sensationalism and perpetuating a negative image of South Africa.
Crime stories dominate the Daily Sun's headlines. The paper shows the reader the explicit reality of South Africa's murder rate - one of the highest in the world.
Dennis Smith surrounds his desk with photographs of murder victims that have appeared in the Daily Sun. "We have 23,000 murders a year in South Africa ... living in Africa, it's like sliding down the razorblade of life".
Deon is unapologetic about the images: "We've been taken to the press council on a number of occasions about gory front pages and the ombudsman has each time found in our favour accepting our argument that that's township life."
Aspirational
Despite the reality that violence and high unemployment are virtually unchanged, the Daily Sun believes its readers are optimistic about life.
The black middle class is growing by 50% every year and fuelling a consumer boom.
Editor Themba Khumale, points out improvements in his home township, Soweto: "People are beginning to get access to money, own their own properties, something which never happened before. Things are changing, things are happening."
The Daily Sun claims to help its readers in their aspirations: from raising money for school uniforms to highlighting the failure of local amenities.
Every day crowds of people arrive in the Sun's reception wanting their stories to appear in the paper.
Owner Deon du Plessis sees the paper's success as a reflection of the positive mood of its reader: "Our reader is truly in rapid motion ... in fact it would be unfair now to call him the man in the blue overalls, he's probably the guy in the expensive slacks.
"That process of improving his life is probably the greatest sociological revolution on the African continent."
Black and White and Read All Over was broadcast on Tuesday, 17 October, 2006 at 21.50 BST on BBC Two
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There's a very strong spiritual element in this country which it would be foolish to ignore
