John Pilger
Birth : 1939-10-09, Sydney, Australia
History
John Richard Pilger is an Australian journalist based in London. Pilger has lived in the United Kingdom since 1962. 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 unearths the hidden agenda behind the NHS crisis.
Writer
John Pilger unearths the hidden agenda behind the NHS crisis.
Director
John Pilger unearths the hidden agenda behind the NHS crisis.
The Coming War on China is John Pilger's 60th film for ITV. Pilger reveals what the news doesn't - that the United States and the world's second economic power, China (both nuclear armed) are on the road to war. Pilger's film is a warning and an inspiring story of resistance.
Writer
The Coming War on China is John Pilger's 60th film for ITV. Pilger reveals what the news doesn't - that the United States and the world's second economic power, China (both nuclear armed) are on the road to war. Pilger's film is a warning and an inspiring story of resistance.
Director
The Coming War on China is John Pilger's 60th film for ITV. Pilger reveals what the news doesn't - that the United States and the world's second economic power, China (both nuclear armed) are on the road to war. Pilger's film is a warning and an inspiring story of resistance.
Himself
Documentary by John Pilger looks at the awful truth behind white Australia's dysfunctional relationship with Indigenous Australians
Director
Documentary by John Pilger looks at the awful truth behind white Australia's dysfunctional relationship with Indigenous Australians
A look at Japanese society and its emergent nationalism.
Director
This film investigates how the media has reported war, from the First World War to the present day.
Self
Set both in Latin America and the United States, the film explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. Pilger says that the film "...tells a universal story... analysing and revealing, through vivid testimony, the story of great power behind its venerable myths. It allows us to understand the true nature of the so-called "war on terror". According to Pilger, the film’s message is that the greed and power of empire is not invincible and that people power is always the "seed beneath the snow".
Writer
Set both in Latin America and the United States, the film explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. Pilger says that the film "...tells a universal story... analysing and revealing, through vivid testimony, the story of great power behind its venerable myths. It allows us to understand the true nature of the so-called "war on terror". According to Pilger, the film’s message is that the greed and power of empire is not invincible and that people power is always the "seed beneath the snow".
Director
Set both in Latin America and the United States, the film explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. Pilger says that the film "...tells a universal story... analysing and revealing, through vivid testimony, the story of great power behind its venerable myths. It allows us to understand the true nature of the so-called "war on terror". According to Pilger, the film’s message is that the greed and power of empire is not invincible and that people power is always the "seed beneath the snow".
Writer
This tells a story literally 'hidden from history'. In the 1960s and 70s, British governments, conspiring with American officials, tricked into leaving, then expelled the entire population of the Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean. The aim was to give the principal island of this Crown Colony, Diego Garcia, to the Americans who wanted it as a major military base. Indeed, from Diego Garcia US planes have since bombed Afghanistan and Iraq. The story is told by islanders who were dumped in the slums of Mauritius and in the words of the British officials who left a 'paper trail' of what the International Criminal Court now describes as 'a crime against humanity'
Director
This tells a story literally 'hidden from history'. In the 1960s and 70s, British governments, conspiring with American officials, tricked into leaving, then expelled the entire population of the Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean. The aim was to give the principal island of this Crown Colony, Diego Garcia, to the Americans who wanted it as a major military base. Indeed, from Diego Garcia US planes have since bombed Afghanistan and Iraq. The story is told by islanders who were dumped in the slums of Mauritius and in the words of the British officials who left a 'paper trail' of what the International Criminal Court now describes as 'a crime against humanity'
Himself
This tells a story literally 'hidden from history'. In the 1960s and 70s, British governments, conspiring with American officials, tricked into leaving, then expelled the entire population of the Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean. The aim was to give the principal island of this Crown Colony, Diego Garcia, to the Americans who wanted it as a major military base. Indeed, from Diego Garcia US planes have since bombed Afghanistan and Iraq. The story is told by islanders who were dumped in the slums of Mauritius and in the words of the British officials who left a 'paper trail' of what the International Criminal Court now describes as 'a crime against humanity'
Director
A critical documentary about the war on terror since 9-11.
Writer
A documentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has lasted for more than 50 years. Contains some interviews with the children in this conflict.
Director
The myths of globalisation have been incorporated into much of our everyday language. "Thinking globally" and "the global economy" are part of a jargon that assumes we are all part of one big global village, where national borders and national identities no longer matter. But what is globalisation? And where is this global village? In 2001, John Pilger made 'The New Rulers of the World', a film exploring the impact of globalisation. It took Indonesia as the prime example, a country that the World Bank described as a 'model pupil' until its 'globalised' economy collapsed in 1998. Globalisation has not only made the world smaller. It has also made it interdependent. An investment decision made in London can spell unemployment for thousands in Indonesia, while a business decision taken in Tokyo can create thousands of new jobs for workers in north-east England.
An analysis of the effect of economic sanctions on Iraq.
Producer
An analysis of South Africa's new, democratic regime.
Director
An analysis of South Africa's new, democratic regime.
Writer
An analysis of South Africa's new, democratic regime.
An analysis of South Africa's new, democratic regime.
Himself - Presenter
This 1997 film considers the downfall of the Daily Mirror, the newspaper Pilger worked on for 23 years: a popular, intelligent tabloid once read by a quarter of the British population and which genuinely reflected its readers' concerns. Pilger asks why the qualities seen in the paper prior to the 1970s are no longer apparent, examining the contraction of the press following the Sun's symbolic move to Wapping, coverage of the Hillsborough disaster, the fate of the Daily Mirror under Robert Maxwell, and the stranglehold of Rupert Murdoch.
Writer
This 1997 film considers the downfall of the Daily Mirror, the newspaper Pilger worked on for 23 years: a popular, intelligent tabloid once read by a quarter of the British population and which genuinely reflected its readers' concerns. Pilger asks why the qualities seen in the paper prior to the 1970s are no longer apparent, examining the contraction of the press following the Sun's symbolic move to Wapping, coverage of the Hillsborough disaster, the fate of the Daily Mirror under Robert Maxwell, and the stranglehold of Rupert Murdoch.
Director
John Pilger and David Munro go undercover to expose how the former British colony is ruled by a harsh, bloody and uncompromising military regime.
John Pilger shows how the UN has allowed the Khmer Rouge to grow stronger.
Writer
The sensational expose of the complicity of Britain, USA and Australia in the continuing genocide in East Timor.
The sensational expose of the complicity of Britain, USA and Australia in the continuing genocide in East Timor.
Director
Britain is still a world leader. Indeed it has twenty percent of a world market, second only to the United States. And this industry is considered so important by the government that it consumes almost half of all research and development funds. Strangely it produces not consumer goods that people want, but machines that hardly any of us use or want to use. Moreover, for all its’ preeminence, its’ future is uncertain and depends to a large degree on secret deals with some of the most corrupt and brutal regimes on Earth. One of the biggest manufacturing industries in Britain at the close of the century is ARMS. John Pilger and David Munro look behind the political rhetoric and discover the world of international arms dealing.
Director
War By Other Means is a 1992 television documentary by John Pilger and David Munro concerning loans to developing countries from the World Bank which cause them to pay more interest then they ever receive in international aid ("debt as a weapon"). It also analyses Structural Adjustment Programs, which are proclaimed to enable countries to compete in the global economy, but have the effect of lowering wages which results in the transfer of wealth from poor to rich. It features Dr. Susan George, author of The Debt Boomerang.
1990. The plight of a people who have struggled to rebuild their stricken country.
1989. An examination of how the UN protected and revitalised the Khmer Rouge.
Writer
The shameful history of persecution of the Aborigines in Australia. The secret history of Australia is a historical conspiracy of silence. Written history has long applied selectivity to what it records, largely ignoring the shameful way that the Aborigines were, and continue to be, treated. Because Aborigines had not cultivated the land they were seen by British colonists as having no proprietorial rights to the land. They had no treaty and therefore no rights under British colonial rule. Little of their resistance is recorded.
Presenter
The shameful history of persecution of the Aborigines in Australia. The secret history of Australia is a historical conspiracy of silence. Written history has long applied selectivity to what it records, largely ignoring the shameful way that the Aborigines were, and continue to be, treated. Because Aborigines had not cultivated the land they were seen by British colonists as having no proprietorial rights to the land. They had no treaty and therefore no rights under British colonial rule. Little of their resistance is recorded.
Burp! Pepsi Vs Coke in the Ice Cold War traces the history of these brands against the backdrop of global politics. The second world war was the perfect vehicle for Coca-Cola distribution (including to the Nazis), with bottling plants on front lines paid for by the US war department.
How can a country survive when its jungle borders hold 4000 hostile troops?
Director
1981. The shabby treatment of returning combat soldiers from Vietnam is investigated.
Author
John Pilger vividly reveals the brutality and murderous political ambitions of the Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge totalitarian regime which bought genocide and despair to the people of Cambodia while neighboring countries, including Australia, shamefully ignored the immense human suffering and unspeakable crimes that bloodied this once beautiful country.
John Pilger vividly reveals the brutality and murderous political ambitions of the Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge totalitarian regime which bought genocide and despair to the people of Cambodia while neighboring countries, including Australia, shamefully ignored the immense human suffering and unspeakable crimes that bloodied this once beautiful country.
Director
1976. A candid look at the highs and lows of Australian society.
Presenter
The plight of mentally handicapped children held in appalling circumstances.
Presenter
Documentary about innocent people confined to prison on remand. John Pilger reports that more than half of the 500,000 people remanded in custody by magistrates each year are eventually found not guilty, fined or, as in the case of “Helen”, given a conditional discharge. Helen, charged with stealing a pair of slippers but with no previous convictions, recalls her day in Holloway Prison, London, which started at 7am when she joined 96 other prisoners in a rush to use four toilets whose conditions were “disgusting”. Between then and lunchtime, all prisoners were locked up, with just half-an-hour’s walk round a large yard for exercise. Lunch was eaten in cells, with tea at 3.30pm, before they were locked up until the following morning.
Presenter
Documentary about innocent people confined to prison on remand. John Pilger reports that more than half of the 500,000 people remanded in custody by magistrates each year are eventually found not guilty, fined or, as in the case of “Helen”, given a conditional discharge. Helen, charged with stealing a pair of slippers but with no previous convictions, recalls her day in Holloway Prison, London, which started at 7am when she joined 96 other prisoners in a rush to use four toilets whose conditions were “disgusting”. Between then and lunchtime, all prisoners were locked up, with just half-an-hour’s walk round a large yard for exercise. Lunch was eaten in cells, with tea at 3.30pm, before they were locked up until the following morning.
In this, the first of his 58 documentary films, John Pilger combines candid interviews and amazing frontline footage of Vietnam to portray a growing rift between the US military bureaucrats - "lifers" - and the soldiers who physically and mentally fight the war on the ground, the "grunts". By 1970, it is an internal sense of disillusionment and frustration born from this rift that is triggering the withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam.
