John Pilger

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John Pilger bigraphy, stories - Australian journalist

John Pilger : biography

9 October 1939 –

John Richard Pilger (born 9 October 1939)Anthony Hayward, Breaking the Silence: The Television Reporting of John Pilger, London, Network, 2008, p. 3 (no ISBN, book contained within Heroes DVD, Region 2 boxset)Trisha Sertori The Jakarta Post, 11 October 2012 is an Australian journalist based in London.] and Jeff Weintraub, "Obama and the Progressives: A Curious Paradox"], The Huffington Post, 28 May 2008 Pilger has lived in the United Kingdom since 1962., by Candace Sutton, The Australian, 1 March 2013 by Glen Jones, British Film Institute Since his early years as a war correspondent in Vietnam, Pilger has been a strong critic of American, Australian and British foreign policy, which he considers to be driven by an imperialist agenda. Pilger has also criticised his native country’s treatment of indigenous Australians and the practices of the mainstream media. In the British print media, he has had a long association with the Daily Mirror, and writes a fortnightly column for the New Statesman magazine.

Pilger has twice won Britain’s Journalist of the Year Award. His documentaries, screened internationally, have gained awards in Britain and worldwide. The journalist has also received several honorary doctorates., John Pilger’s official website, Robert Fisk website

Documentaries and career since 2000

Later newspaper career

In 1987 Pilger was a founder of News on Sunday in London, and titular Editor-in-Chief, but resigned before publication. Pilger has a fortnightly column in New Statesman, his most frequent outlet, which began in 1991 while Steve Platt was editor of the magazine.John Pilger and Steve Platt , Red Pepper, July 2010 Reportedly, Pilger has described his role at the Statesman as a "fig leaf".Judith Townend , Journalism.co.uk, 2 December 2009 In 2001, while Piers Morgan was editor of the Mirror, Pilger returned to his old paper in 2001, after the 9/11 attacks in the United States.Hayward (2008), p.10

Palestine Is Still the Issue

The broadcast of Pilger’s documentary Palestine Is Still the Issue (2002), whose historical adviser was Ilan Pappé,John Pilger , The Guardian, 23 September 2002 resulted in complaints by the Israeli embassy, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and the Conservative Friends of Israel that it was inaccurate and biased.Stephen Bates , 20 September 2002 Michael Green, chairman of Carlton Communications, the company that made the film, also objected to it in an interview,Leon Symons , The Jewish Chronicle, as reprinted by mediaguardiian, 20 September 2002 but not at the time he had been shown it before transmission, according to Pilger. who rejected the criticism.Jason Deans , mediaguardian, 20 September 2002

The UK television regulator, the Independent Television Commission (ITC), ordered an investigation. Based on its investigation, the ITC rejected the complaints about the film, stating in its report: The ITC raised with Carlton all the significant areas of inaccuracy critics of the programme alleged and the broadcaster answered them by reference to a range of historical texts. The ITC is not a tribunal of fact and is particularly aware of the difficulties of verifying ‘historical fact’ but the comprehensiveness and authority of Carlton’s sources were persuasive, not least because many appeared to be of Israeli origin., ITC, 13 January 2003, p.4-5 ()

Pilger’s documentary gave "adequate opportunity was given to a pro-Israeli government perspective" and "was not in breach of the ITC Programme Code".Louise Jury , The Independent, 13 January 2003, accessed on 3 July 2011

In 2010, Pilger endorsed the "Canadian Boat to Gaza,"http://canadaboatgaza.org/cms/sites/cbg/en/endorsers.aspx part of the Freedom Flotilla 2. http://www.freedomflotilla.eu/ It was intended to end the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Diego Garcia

Pilger’s 2004 documentary film Stealing a Nation told the story of the late 20th-century trials of the people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean. In the 1960s and 70s, British governments expelled the entire population of the Chagos Archipelago, settling them in Mauritius, with only enough money to live in the slums. It gave access to Diego Garcia, the principal island of this Crown Colony, to the United States (US) for its construction of a major military base for the region. In the 21st century, the US used the base for planes bombing targets in Iraq and Afghanistan in its response to the 9/11 attacks.