REVIEW: Media hypocrisy

Abstract

Review of A Critical View of Western Journalism and Scholarship on East Timor, by Geoffrey Gunn, Manila: Journal of Contemporary Asia Publishers, 1994. 272 pp. K10. Shortly after the Dili massacre in November 1991, I was paid a 'kill' fee by one of New Zealand's largest dailies rather than publish a detailed account of the circumstances leading up to the massacre and an exposure of the Indonesian lies and distortions. The full-page broadsheet article had already been set up in type and laid out when it was 'pulled' from the paper. A New Zealander was among those who were brutally murdered by Indonesian troops that tragic day.

Keywords

• East Timor
• self-censorship
• western journalism
• Review