[News] John Pilger

lawros left foot · Dec 31, 2023

Sadly passed away yesterday.

A true Legend of journalism. A man who stood up for the oppressed and downtrodden of the World.

Held truth to power throughout his life, a proper journalist.

A personal Hero of mine, a great loss to mankind.

RIP John.

Bakero · Dec 31, 2023

A true great. It's a shame he seemed to lose his way somewhat in recent years but he should be remembered for the brilliant work he did throughout his career.

GT49er · Dec 31, 2023

Yes, fantastic investigating and campaigning journalist. RIP indeed.

jimhigham · Dec 31, 2023

Met him at work once shortly after having watched The War You Don’t See. A decent chat ensued and he seemed quite a humble chap.

He used his voice to speak up for those that had none. We need investigative journalists of his stature more than ever.

Tom Hark Preston Park · Dec 31, 2023

Legendary journalist of rare reporting ability and integrity. RIP John Pilger :down:

Leekbrookgull · Dec 31, 2023

Old school journalist something that we no longer see. Sad news.

Wardy's twin · Dec 31, 2023

Proper journalist ..

Seagull · Dec 31, 2023

Sad to hear this. A great campaigning journalist, writer and filmmaker, calling the powerful and corrupt to account. RIP.

John Pilger, campaigning journalist, dies aged 84

Celebrated Australian journalist and documentary film-maker covered conflicts in Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Biafra

www.theguardian.com

vegster · Dec 31, 2023

jimhigham said:
Met him at work once shortly after having watched The War You Don’t See. A decent chat ensued and he seemed quite a humble chap.

He used his voice to speak up for those that had none. We need investigative journalists of his stature more than ever.

There are plenty of decent investigative journos around, it's just that the scandals they expose now are just ignored or excused...ref, Johnson, Cummins, Trump etc etc. John Pilger was one of the best and was required viewing/ reading....RIP John.

Weststander · Dec 31, 2023

RIP.

His work was a mixed bag. Fantastic journalism on Martin Luther King, Apartheid and Vietnam, whilst over time blaming literally everything on the West, whilst refusing to mention that Pol Pot was a marxist funded by China. He despised Tony Blair for Iraq.

nicko31 · Dec 31, 2023

A big supporter of defending aboriginal rights in Australia with documentaries from A Secret Country to the more recent Utopia.

Loathed by the right wing press, a great journalist exposing injustices around the world

RIP

armchairclubber · Dec 31, 2023

nicko31 said:
A big supporter of defending aboriginal rights in Australia with documentaries from A Secret Country to the more recent Utopia.

Loathed by the right wing press, a great journalist exposing injustices around the world

RIP

That has to inadvertently be one of the all time docu comedy moments. Are you Australian?

RIP John Pilger

jimhigham · Dec 31, 2023

vegster said:
There are plenty of decent investigative journos around, it's just that the scandals they expose now are just ignored or excused...ref, Johnson, Cummins, Trump etc etc. John Pilger was one of the best and was required viewing/ reading....RIP John.

I don’t disagree. We still have them but we could always use more. The forces of establishment have become ever more efficient at marginalising important reporting. Just look at the raft of litigation Lady Mone initiated in an attempt to shut down legitimate reporting before eventually admitting it was largely true.

Harry Wilson's tackle · Dec 31, 2023

Bakero said:
A true great. It's a shame he seemed to lose his way somewhat in recent years but he should be remembered for the brilliant work he did throughout his career.

He was 84 when he died. Even Linus Pauling was duped by charlatans in his dotage (in his case the advocates of vitamin C as a cancer treatment). I hope I acquire the self awareness to question my partial imperatives as I get older (although I'm not putting any money on it).

His finest hour was bringing the horrors of Pol Pot to the world's attention. RIP

Perfidious Albion · Dec 31, 2023

I always rated his reports very highly. He was outspoken for the plight of others. I respected him a lot .
RIP John Pilger, Your work is done.

clapham_gull · Dec 31, 2023

Often seen walking up the High Street, lived near the Common.

Read a few of his older books, but (as above) in recent years appeared to fallen into the "any enemy of the West must be a friend of mine" Corbynista rabbit hole.

That said, great reporter in his day. Shame me don't see the likes of him presenting programmes in prime time anymore.

Harry Wilson's tackle · Dec 31, 2023

Weststander said:
RIP.

His work was a mixed bag. Fantastic journalism on Martin Luther King, Apartheid and Vietnam, whilst over time blaming literally everything on the West, whilst refusing to mention that Pol Pot was a marxist funded by China. He despised Tony Blair for Iraq.

This was never my perception at the time. It transpires this is a false trope initiated by William Shawcross:

"A rather interesting quality of the articles was their concentration on Nazism and the holocaust. Pilger called Pol Pot 'an Asian Hitler' — and said he was even worse than Hitler . . . Again and again Pilger compared the Khmer Rouge to the Nazis. Their Marxist-Leninist ideology was not even mentioned in the Mirror, except to say they were inspired by the Red Guards. Their intellectual origins were described as 'anarchist' rather than Communist".

Ben Kiernan, in his review of Shawcross's book, notes that Pilger did compare Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge to Stalin's terror, as well as to Mao's Red Guards. Kiernan notes instances where other writers' comparisons of Pol Pot to Hitler or the Vietnamese to the Nazis are either accepted by Shawcross in his account, or not mentioned.

Pilger was constantly under attack from the right for his support of issues that were labeled at the time as issues of the left (such as Aboriginal rights). It seems that the smears are remembered and inform a narrative resulting in his being damned by faint praise by some, and sneered at by others.

As for Shawcross himself, he drifted ever rightward in his life, stridently anti-Muslim, and stooping to making trite 'anti woke' diatribes:

"In a 2010 article for National Review Shawcross described Britain as a "mere piece of the bland but increasingly oppressive Bambiland of the E.U., promoting such PC global issues as gay rights (except in Muslim lands) and man-made climate change." He also criticised "postmodernism"; defining it as "disastrous creed that there is no objective truth and that everything is relative" and likened it to a form of appeasement. In the same article, Shawcross described Labour's "'multicultural' ideology" as a "catastrophe" and implied that Labour's immigration policy was designed to "dilute Britishness"". Sounds like a bit of a prat to me. His wiki page ends with "In 2009, Shawcross signed a petition in support of film director Roman Polanski, calling for his release after Polanski was arrested in Switzerland in relation to his 1977 sexual abuse case". Hmmmm.....with enemies like this, Pilger can indeed rest in peaqce.

the larks · Dec 31, 2023

brilliant journo - if you have never read it , get a copy of a " A secret Country " it will open your eyes ( if they need opening ) and I speak as an Australian born and bred. They dont make them like that anymore ( or maybe they dont have a voice ) RIP one of my heroes

Zeberdi · Dec 31, 2023

the larks said:
brilliant journo - if you have never read it , get a copy of a " A secret Country " it will open your eyes ( if they need opening ) and I speak as an Australian born and bred. They dont make them like that anymore ( or maybe they dont have a voice ) RIP one of my heroes

Brilliant journalist but very controversial- as great individual thinkers and those that can see another perspective beyond the lenses of their own cultural biases usually are:

My father was a journalist for a MSM newspaper in Fleet Street for nearly 20 years - he used to say of journalists like Pilger and Fisk, ‘when the news media stops providing space for the single dissenting voice to rise above the parapet of popular thinking, society will be in more trouble than we realise’

He was a well known critic of Israels occupation of Palestine, and his critique of US policy in Ukraine was insightful