Image: John Pilger, celebrated Australian journalist and documentary filmmaker
by GRACE JOHNSON
Following the news of John Pilger’s death, tributes have been flowing for the beloved Australian journalist, author and documentary filmmaker, who died in London aged 84.
His family confirmed his passing on New Year’s Eve on X, writing “It is with great sadness the family of John Pilger announce he died yesterday 30 December 2023.”
Countless colleagues and admirers of Mr Pilger have since paid tribute to the “giant of journalism” on social media.
On X, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn wrote “John gave a voice to the unheard and the occupied: in Australia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Chile, Iraq, East Timor, Palestine and beyond.”
“Thank you for your bravery in pursuit of the truth — it will never be forgotten.”
British-Palestinian filmmaker and rights activist Farah Nabulsi paid respects to Mr Pilger on Facebook, describing him as “One of the best and most decent and pro-freedom, documentary filmmakers of our time.”
His documentaries “face up to and expose many of the ugly truths in our world,” she continued.
Mr Pilger thought of documentaries as a tool to reveal hidden truths but also to shock the audience out of their complacency.
He said, “Great documentaries frighten the powerful, unnerve the compliant, expose the hypocritical. They make us think, think again, and speak out, and even take action.”
Life of the celebrated journalist
The celebrated journalist was born in Sydney’s eastern suburb of Bondi in 1939. He attended Sydney Boys High School, where he began a newspaper, The Messenger, but it was after he completed a cadetship with the Australian Consolidated Press that he truly launched his career in journalism.
Mr Pilger was known as a voice of truth in the face of oppressive power. He first gained international recognition after his coverage of the genocide in Cambodia. He then went on to speak out against the greatest atrocities and social upheavals in our modern times, including the US invasion of Iraq, Australia’s treatment of its Indigenous peoples, the Vietnam War, and the East Timor crisis.
He made several documentaries about Indigenous Australians and wrote a book called The Secret Country. In East Timor he filmed Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy, depicting the brutal Indonesian occupation of East Timor, which began in 1975. The documentary became part of the international outcry against Indonesian occupation, leading to their removal and eventually East Timor’s independence in 2000.
In 2002, Mr Pilger released a documentary against the Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank called Palestine Is Still the Issue. He said the film describes how an “historic injustice has been done to the Palestinian people, and until Israel’s illegal and brutal occupation ends, there will be no peace for anyone, Israelis included.”
Before his death, Mr Pilger publicly condemned Israel’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza and urged people to (re)watch his documentary.
Mr Pilger devoted his life to giving voice to those silenced by capitalism, colonisation and imperialism.
In a 2002 interview with The Progressive, he said, “Many journalists now are no more than channellers and echoers of what George Orwell called ‘the official truth’. They simply cipher and transmit lies.”
But perhaps one of his most poignant quotes about the role of journalists illuminates what he himself did in the quest for truth:
“It is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers without understanding the hidden agendas of the message and the myths that surround it.”
