Author Description

Although the 'Dili Massacre' is considered a watershed event in the annals of East Timor, the analysis of its press coverage is still largely overlooked. This book compares the british and portuguese broadsheet coverage of the shooting of demonstrators by indonesian troops at the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili, the capital of East Timor. Drawing on earlier research in the field, this study presents an alternative conceptual model of news factors that allows for an appraisal of press performance in foreign reporting. The model assesses the weight of news factors in determining both the newsworthiness and the orientation of the coverage pointing to the interplay of news values and, in particular, the influence of intramedia considerations, in determining the coverage of the November 12 (1991) episode and in justifying the differences between the portuguese and british reporting, and the influence of national perspective marked by 'cultural bias' or 'public patriotism'.