New York Times and BBC Coverage

Media Coverage
When researching our film, we found it somewhat difficult to find stories in the New York Times that were  from the time period of the apartheid or informative. Most of the information we found was from BBC related websites. Unfortunately, we couldn't find articles from South African papers, most likely due to the governments restriction and control over the press. As a group we decided that it made more sense to research media coverage from the BBC perspective instead of the New York Times coverage. While we do have a few article from the New York Times that we will compare to BBC's we focused mainly on BBC articles alone. 

 
COVERAGE 
We found this article on the New York Times archive, it was published in September of 1977. It is the only article written about Biko during the years that our movie was based on about the events in South Africa. 


http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0912.html

We found that articles based on South Africa and the apartheid started to appear in the NYT in 1987, which was the date that the film "Cry Freedom" was released. We feel that this film brought awareness to the public and is the reason that this issue was focused more on in the news. 

Here are some links to articles written in 1987...

We decided to analyze one of the articles written by the NY Times for accuracy and bias.  We found their use of words to be a little dramatic and also found an accuracy error.

1.) NY Times - death of Donald Woods
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/20/world/donald-woods-67-editor-and-apartheid-foe.html

"Crusading white newspaper editor," who "championed" the black anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko.  "It was a friendship that ultimately forced Mr. Woods into exile."  - This paints a picture of him as self-sacrificing, hero-like, being a friend no matter the cost.

"His fierce condemnations of the apartheid government quickly made him an enemy of the state."  - Shows him to be fighting and ferocious... a little too over the top, dramatized, and sensationalized a little bit.  ''One day, I wrote an article reminding Prime Minister Verwoerd of his record of Nazi sympathies and accusing him of embodying Hitler's master-race theories in his apartheid policies,'' Mr. Woods recalled in an interview in New York in 1981. The retaliation came quickly. His family was threatened. A police officer sent T-shirts to his children that had been treated with a Mace-like substance, Ninhydrin. The acid burned the skin of his 5-year-old daughter.

Wood's friendship with Biko "was the turning point of his life."  - More dramatization. 
"Mr. Woods helped to raise the outcry, publishing details of Mr. Biko's death in his newspaper, and was subsequently banned -- forbidden to write, or even sit in the same room with more than one person aside from his family. Soon after, he fled the country disguised as a priest, with his wife at the wheel of the getaway car." -said Woods went back for wedding of Biko's daughter.  BBC sources have said it was for Biko's son.

2.)  Article from NY Times On Woods' return from exile -
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/21/world/anti-apartheid-editor-to-return-from-exile.html?src=pm

His friendship with the late black activist Steven Biko and his dramatic escape from South Africa helped inspire the 1987 film ''Cry Freedom.''

3.) NY Times movie review:
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B0DE6D61239F935A35752C1A961948260
''Cry Freedom'' has other problems as well, problems that arise from the fact that there is no Gandhi at its center. In ''Gandhi,'' the director had a wonderfully irascible and inspiring character with which to work, a long and fascinating story to tell, and a wealth of unforgettable aphorisms with which to pepper the dialogue. Stephen Biko was a less flamboyant kind of hero, more the dedicated political theorist and less the colorful eccentric. Much less is known about him. And tragically, his story was a great deal shorter.




COVERAGE
The BBC did a much better job covering the story of South African apartheid, during and after the dates that the movie "Cry Freedom" is based on. We found an entire archive on the Apartheid in South Africa itself.
Link to the BBC archive:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/apartheid/

BBC interviews Helen Zille, the reporter who uncovered the truth and broke the news story about the truth of Steve Biko's death. You can listen to her speaking about her experience and what she faced as she unfolded the truth of the matter. 
Follow the link below to listen to Helen Zille:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00b2rg6/Witness_The_death_of_antiapartheid_activist_Steve_Biko/

Other Links from the BBC

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