DILI (Radio Australia / Pacific Media Watch): East Timor has undergone a hectic and sometimes fragile transformation from oppressed colony to emerging democracy. And the experience has proved especially challenging for journalists - both local and foreign.
Now a new documentary, Breaking the News, looks at the work and lives of two of East Timor's most experienced investigative journalists - Jose Belo and Rosa Garcia.
Sarah Jaensch reports for Australia Network's Asia Pacific Focus:
Journalist and camerman Jose Bello smuggled videos containing scenes such as this out of East Timor at the height of its troubles.
JOSE BELO (excerpt from Breaking the News, May 2006): The foreign media (are) very professional media organisations and they have a long history of covering stories around the world. But sometimes if you come into East Timor, East Timor is a new country and East Timor has its own characters. And how people doing their things, they have their own way to do it.
SARAH JAENSCH, REPORTER: It's been a remarkable journey for Jose Belo, one that has seen him report from the front-line on the birth and growing pains of East Timor.
During the Indonesian occupation Belo would go undercover and smuggle videos out of the country, showing the international media what was happening in East Timor.
Today he is a journalist, cameraman and newspaper director.
Rosa Garcia too has been there to chart the trials and tribulations of her young country. As reporter at the East Timor Post she has earned a reputation for uncovering the truth.
Now Belo and Garcia are the focus of a new documentary called Breaking the News, made by filmmaker Nicholas Hansen.
Media7 interview with film director Nicholas Hansen and a media freedom item - The Source - 20 October 2011
(cc) Creative Commons
Pacific Media Watch
