José António Afonso Rodrigues dos Santos (born 1 April 1964) is a Portuguese journalist, novelist and university lecturer.

He is the eldest of two sons of Medical Doctor José da Paz Brandão Rodrigues dos Santos (Penafiel, 13 October 1930 – January 1986) and wife Maria Manuela de Campos Afonso Matos.

Formerly a reporter for the BBC, he has covered more than a dozen wars, teaches journalism at the New University of Lisbon, and anchors the Telejornal of Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP), of which he became the Director of Programs.

[7] On January 24, 2015, José reported from Athens on the internal causes of the Greek crisis, and pointed to four factors: big corruption (the example he gave was the luxury house of the Defense minister arrested over the submarines affair), petty corruption (the subsidies given to “many Greeks” who had bribed doctors to get an illegitimate paralysis declaration that entitled them to subsidies), an over-generous Social State (the “holidays for all” program) and massive tax evasion (the swimming pools scheme).

[11] On 7 October 2015, the journalist was accused by the Socialist Party of making a homophobic comment as he switched the masculine form "eleito" to the feminine "eleita" when introducing a news story about the oldest MP elected to the new parliament.

[16] In an interview for the TV program Grande Entrevista in November 2020, Rodrigues dos Santos stated about the Holocaust: "That was a gradual process, and at one point someone said: ‘They are in the ghettos; they are starving; we can't feed them.

'” The statement was attacked by journalists and historians alike, including Holocaust experts like Irene Pimentel[17] and João Pinto Coelho who considered the comments "obscene".

After reviewing the full interview, ERC concluded that José Rodrigues dos Santos’ statements were “distorted” because “quoted out of context, discourse and reasoning” and that the analysis of his words “showed the interviewee neither minimizes nor lightens the crimes committed against the Jews in the concentration camps”.

After quoting several statements by José Rodrigues dos Santos in the same interview, including when he stressed the seriousness and horrific nature of the crimes committed against Jews in the Nazi concentration camps, ERC made it clear the complaints were “groundless”.