“A giant of journalism” was how Britain’s National Union of Journalists described John Pilger on his death in December 2023.

And a giant he was – a brave and prolific film-maker and a brilliant reporter, with a rare gift for vivid, descriptive writing. But his greatest gift perhaps was in ‘lifting rocks’. In his dozens of documentaries and hundreds of articles over six decades, most often exposing the ruthlessness of power, John became the most important journalist of his generation.

From Vietnam to South Africa, from Cambodia to Palestine, John’s work was committed to holding governments – especially the US, Britain and Australia, too often absolved of criminality in the West, to account for their actions and abuses. That is what true journalism should be about – but, as John knew only too well, rarely is.

He spoke out in support of the vulnerable and marginalised, those in poverty, asylum seekers, victims of war, and Indigenous citizens in countries where they were often seen as “unpeople”.

For years, he advocated for his friend Julian Assange – persecuted by a rapacious US empire for telling the truth, and a touchstone in our era dividing those who commit or defend war crimes from those who expose them.

John’s films brought global attention to neglected issues. After his 1994 film Death of a Nation – about Indonesia’s brutal occupation of East Timor – was screened in Britain, it became the highest-rated TV documentary in 15 years with 4,000 telephone calls per minute made by viewers to the programme’s action line. The film had been “crucial”, said Timor’s first President, Jose Ramos-Horta, after his country gained its independence, “in bringing forward our liberation and saving countless lives.”

Ten years later, John’s film Stealing A Nation documented the largely unknown story of how Britain and the US conspired to expel the entire population of Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean in order to build a military base. The film won a Royal Television Society award.

But John was a million miles removed from ever joining the elite club of journalists rewarded by the media and political establishment. He was independent, and frowned on complicit or ‘embedded’ journalism, seeking rather to expose it.

(more…)