The Press: Drum Beat in Africa

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English & Swahili. Such candid journalism hardly sits well with white officials, who have impounded issues and jailed staffers, sometimes confiscated the cameras of Drum photographers on the ground that any "coloured" with a camera must surely have stolen it. These difficulties do not perturb Drum's Editor Henry Thomas Hopkinson, 54, former editor of the London Picture Post (now defunct), who went to Johannesburg in 1958, regularly entertains native staffers in his home.

Hopkinson has boosted circulation 40%, plans next year to give Drum readers in Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda their own East African edition, which will be published in both English and Swahili. Eventually, Publisher Bailey and Editor Hopkinson hope, Drum's beat will be heard and understood all over Africa.