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John Pilger grew up in Sydney, Australia. He has been a war correspondent, author and documentary film-maker. He is one of only two to win British journalism's highest award twice, for his work all over the world. On 1 November, he was awarded Britain's highest honor for documentary film-making by the Grierson Trustees, in memory of the documentary pioneer John Grierson.
He has been International reporter of the Year and a recipient of the United Nations Association Peace Prize and Gold Medal. In 2003, he received the prestigious Sophie Prize for "thirty years of exposing deception and improving human rights." In 2009, he was awarded Australia's international human rights award, the Sydney Peace Prize, "for his courage as a film-maker and journalist in enabling the voices of the powerless to be heard "."
For his documentary films, he has won an American television academy award, an Emmy, and the Richard Dimbleby Award for a lifetime's work in factual broadcasting, awarded by BAFTA. His first film, The Quiet Mutiny, made in 1970 for Granada's World in Action, revealed the rebellion within the US Army in Vietnam that led to the American withdrawal. His 1979 documentary, the epic Cambodia Year Zero is credited with alerting the world to the horrors of the Pol Pot regime. Year Zero is ranked by the BFI as among the ten most important documentaries of the 20th century. His Death of a Nation, about East Timor, had a similar impact in 1994. He has made 58 documentary films.
He is the author of numerous best-selling books, including Heroes and A Secret Country, The New Rulers of the World and Hidden Agendas. He is the editor of an anthology, Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs. His latest book is Freedom Next Time.
"John Pilger unearths, with steely attention to facts, the filthy truth and tells it as it is" -- Harold Pinter.
"John Pilger's work has been a beacon of light in often dark times. The realities he has brought to light have been a revelation, over and over again, and his courage and insight a constant inspiration." -- Noam Chomsky[
Wednesday, May 16, 2012 Never forget that Bradley Manning, not gay marriage, is the issue (6 comments)
One of America's true heroes is the gay soldier Bradley Manning, the whistleblower alleged to have provided WikiLeaks with the epic evidence of American carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was the Obama administration that smeared his homosexuality as weird, and it was Obama himself who declared a man convicted of no crime to be guilty.
Thursday, April 26, 2012 You Are All Suspects Now. What Are You Going To Do About It? (20 comments)
The malignancy that Norman Mailer called "pre-fascist" has metastasized. The US attorney-general, Eric Holder, defends the "right" of his government to assassinate American citizens. Israel, the protege, is allowed to aim its nukes at nukeless Iran. In this looking glass world, the lying is panoramic.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012 East Timor: a Lesson in Why the Poorest Threaten the Powerful (1 comments)
Visiting Australia last November, President Barack Obama issued another of his veiled threats to China and announced the establishment of a US Marines' base in Darwin, just across the water from East Timor. He understands that small, impoverished countries can often present the greatest threat to predatory power, because if they cannot be intimidated and controlled, who can?
Thursday, March 22, 2012 Up, Up and Away: How Money Power Works Down Under
As in Britain and America, the unions have long been tamed, co-opted and policed by their own leaderships. Gillard's workplace relations minister is Bill Shorten, a former union boss whose political ambitions and boasts of close ties to business elites are highlighted in US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.
Saturday, March 10, 2012 The Dirty War on WikiLeaks is Now Trial by Media in Sweden (5 comments)
Ironically, this circus has performed under cover of some of the world's most enlightened laws protecting journalists, which attracted Assange to Sweden in 2010 to establish a base for WikiLeaks. Should his extradition be allowed, and with Damocles swords of malice and a vengeful Washington hanging over his head, who will protect him and provide the justice to which we all have a right?
Wednesday, March 7, 2012 Julia Gillard's Rise Marks the Triumph of Machine Politics Over Feminism (1 comments)
That Gillard has pledged to keep Australian soldiers in Afghanistan indefinitely and that the overwhelming majority of those killed or wounded has happened during her period as prime minister, is beside the point. Gillard's feminist distinction, perversely, is her removal of gender discrimination in combat roles in the Australian army.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012 It's Time We Recognized the Blair Government's Criminality (1 comments)
Today, another Afghanistan and Iraq beckons in Syria and Iran, perhaps even a world war. Once again, voices such as Crooke's attempt to explain to a media salivating for "intervention" in Syria that the civil war in that country requires skilled, patient negotiation, not the provocations of the British SAS and the familiar, bought-and-paid-for exiles who ride in Anglo-America's Trojan Horse.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 The Assange Case Means That We Are All Suspects Now (1 comments)
The connections between Manning and Assange have been concocted by a secret grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, which allowed no defence counsel or witnesses, and by a system of plea-bargaining that ensures a 90 percent conviction. It is reminiscent of a Soviet show trial.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 The World War on Democracy
Obama likes drones and has joked about them with journalists. One of his first actions as president was to order a wave of Predator drone attacks on Pakistan that killed 74 people. He has since killed thousands, mostly civilians; drones fire Hellfire missiles that suck the air out of the lungs of children and leave body parts festooned across scrubland.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 In a Land of Facades, Mark the First Signs of an Indian Spring
Hundreds of thousands of unarmed people have come out to reclaim their cities, their streets and mohallas. They have simply overwhelmed the heavily armed security forces by their sheer numbers, and with a remarkable display of raw courage." An Indian Spring may be next.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 Once Again, War is Prime Time and Journalism's Role is Taboo (4 comments)
Having beckoned a criminal assault on Iran, the Guardian opined that this "would of course be madness." Similar arse-covering was deployed when Tony Blair, once a "mystical" hero in polite liberal circles, plotted with George W. Bush and caused a bloodbath in Iraq. With Libya recently dealt with ("It worked," said the Guardian), Iran is next, it seems.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011 In Mexico, a Universal Struggle Against Power and Forgetting
Within a year of embracing Bill Clinton's rapacious North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA), a million jobs were destroyed south of the border, along with Emiliano Zapata's revolutionary triumph, the constitutional protection of indigenous land from sale or privatization. At a stroke, Mexico surrendered its economy to Wall Street.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011 Britain's Highest Documentaries Award
Many young documentary-makers are convinced that, to be acceptable, they must produce a form of reality TV. That is not acceptable, and we need independent spirits as never before. Who else will make sense of a semi-permanent state of war, in which the most potent weapon is the drum beat of the mainstream media?
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 The Son of Africa Claims a Continent's Crown Jewels (4 comments)
The main reason the US is invading Africa is no different from that which ignited the Vietnam war. It is China. In the world of self-serving, institutionalized paranoia that justifies what General David Petraeus, the former US commander and now CIA director, implies is a state of perpetual war, China is replacing al-Qaeda as the official American "threat."
Friday, October 7, 2011 The "getting" of Assange and the smearing of a revolution (3 comments)
It is not the Swedish judicial system that presents a "grave danger" to Assange, say his lawyers, but a legal device known as a Temporary Surrender, under which he can be sent on from Sweden to the United States secretly and quickly. Kafka-style justice awaits Assange whether or not Sweden decides to prosecute him.
