"It's our duty as citizens, we must continue to serve our people," said Kepler Hyacinthe, head of production at Haiti National Radio and Television.

The station's gardens have become a makeshift camp for some 2,000 people since the January 12 quake struck.

"We are acting as a point of reference for disorientated people, as a refuge for those who have nothing and even as a hospital," he said, explaining that a woman had given birth in the gardens early Saturday.

Reporters Without Borders, which has set up a free Internet access for Haitian journalists, says about a dozen reporters, cameramen and technicians were among the more than 112,000 people killed in the quake.

One of the heaviest blows was dealt to Radio Magik 9, among the 40 radios which usually flourish in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and whose headquarters were flattened in the quake.

"It's tough. We lost all our material, but we hope to get back on our feet," said the station director Frantz Duval.

Another popular radio station, Signal FM, had more luck, as their studios survived intact. "We never went off the air," said Michel Soukar, head of educational programming.

"We have seen lots of solidarity from the gas stations which have been giving us fuel for our generator, as well as from the local restaurants which have been bringing us hot meals," Soukar said.

Other stations are now only able to broadcast for a few hours from temporary studios set up under tents, many sending out messages from people looking for their loved ones or appeals for help.

At Radio Metropole, the offices are still standing but "most of the reporters no long have homes and are sleeping at the station," said reporter Gaby Saget, a former prize winner with Reporters Without Borders.

One cameraman from the national television channel was killed, and journalists remain "very frightened," said Hyacinthe.

"We've set up a small studio closer to the exit," he added, showing off the presenter's table adorned with the red and blue colors of the Haitian flag.

The station mainly broadcasts its own news, but also takes feeds from French broadcasters such as TV5 and Euro-News.

But the quake could mark a turning point for the written press in this impoverished Caribbean nation, said Max Chauvet, editor of the main Haitian newspaper Nouvelliste.

Before the quake it had 15,000 subscribers and a readership of 90,000.

He hopes the paper will be back on the streets in the next two months, but in the meantime his dedicated small team has taken to the Internet.

"Before we only used to post the contents of the paper on the site in the evening. Now we are putting out the news only on the site," said Chauvet, although he acknowledged it was mainly Haitians overseas who could read it.

"Where our subscribers? Where can we distribute the paper? We will have to go back to selling our papers by hand on the street," he said of the paper, which relied on advertising for 75 percent of its budget.

The other Haitian daily, Au Matin, had a circulation of 7,000, but its underground newsroom has been abandoned by its journalists, terrified by the aftershocks still rattling the country.

"We mustn't give up hope. We can't just stand by, we have to fight," said the editor-in-chief Clarens Fortune.

The journal lost its layout artist, Yveno Formilus, killed with his wife and three children when his house came tumbling down on the day of his birthday, January 12.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.