António Sampaio is a journalist who has been covering Timor-Leste since 1990. He has reported for most of the Portuguese written press and, in Australia, for News Limited’s newspapers including The Australian, and for SBS radio and television. He followed the developments before the massacre of Santa Cruz and began in that period an extensive coverage on East Timor that earned him the Correspondent Award in 1991.

António travelled in the Lusitânia Expresso in 1992 for Diário de Noticias. He was the first journalist to interview José Ramos Horta after the announcement of the 1996 Nobel Prize. With José Ramos-Horta he tried to rebuild East Timor News Agency (ETNA), during 1991 and 1992.

In 1994/1995 he won two journalism awards in Portugal, the Gazeta Prize and the Journalists Club
Award for a documentary for RTP on oppression in Indonesia. He arrived in Timor-Leste in March 1999, living in the country as the first foreign journalist based in the territory – as the Bureau Chief of the Lusa Agency – until 2004. He returned to the country several times accompanying moments like the crisis of 2006 and other events. He returned as Lusa Bureau Chief to Dili in January 2015.