As part of the multi-faceted communication infrastructure in South Africa, the press is an essential platform where matters of public interest play out, with the potential to influence the transformation discourse, particularly, among ordinary citizens. This article analyses the relationship between press coverage of the land reform debate and its potential effect on public opinion. It focuses on the print genre, specifically tabloids which remain the dominant carriers of the transformation dialogue which includes the controversial land question. In addition to an extensive literature review, qualitative content analysis of news reports based on purposively selected editorials featuring land reform indices, between December 2017 and July 2018, was conducted. The analysis focused on inter alia story headlines, threshold, language, news angles and the application of research imperatives to interrogate the implications of prejudiced edi