Vale John Pilger

[Herainestold]

Pilger edited the 2005 book Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs, in which he summed up his journalistic values. “Secretive power loathes journalists who do their job, who push back screens, peer behind façades, lift rocks,” he said. “Opprobrium from on high is their badge of honour.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/ ... es-aged-84

[bob sterman]

An alternative view...

John Pilger was an apologist for genocide – we should not celebrate his journalism
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/0 ... ia-serbia/

[Woodchopper]

An alternative view...

John Pilger was an apologist for genocide – we should not celebrate his journalism
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/0 ... ia-serbia/

Paywall free version: https://archive.is/2024.01.05-200918/ht ... ia-serbia/

[bob sterman]

An alternative view...

John Pilger was an apologist for genocide – we should not celebrate his journalism
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/0 ... ia-serbia/

Paywall free version: https://archive.is/2024.01.05-200918/ht ... ia-serbia/

Thanks. Didn't realise it was paywalled - it wasn't when I viewed it and I certainly don't have a Telegraph subscription!! Just want to make that clear.

[Woodchopper]

An alternative view...

John Pilger was an apologist for genocide – we should not celebrate his journalism
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/0 ... ia-serbia/

Paywall free version: https://archive.is/2024.01.05-200918/ht ... ia-serbia/

Thanks. Didn't realise it was paywalled - it wasn't when I viewed it and I certainly don't have a Telegraph subscription!! Just want to make that clear.

Of course, the paywalls seem to be pretty unpredictable.

[IvanV]

An alternative view...

John Pilger was an apologist for genocide – we should not celebrate his journalism
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/0 ... ia-serbia/

About 20 or 25 years ago someone I respected said to me that they particularly celebrated John Pilger. And so a little while later I bought a recently published book written by him, expecting to have great scandals revealed. There was some amount of that, but substantially I found this book full of neo-colonialist conspiracy theories, and with some apologism for nasty dictators. What I read there seemed similar to what I also saw in the sad distortions of people like George Galloway and Jeremy Corbyn, who saw nothing but evil in capitalist democracies, and likewise acted as apologists for evil dictators.

It is an issue that clever people sometimes get themselves stuck to stupid ideas. Clever people are better at constructing reasons a hypothesis is still tenable despite growing evidence against them (self-deception - see Robert Trivers' book on that). Certainly the authorities in countries like the USA do some evil and corrupt things. If you are in the business of ferreting that out, with the advantage you can actually find stuff out in open places like the USA, maybe you come away with this idea that they the evil empire. And so maybe you get this distorted view that they are worse than the actual evil empires in places like Russia, China, Iran, etc.

It was interesting to me to read some of the numerous encomiums we saw on his death, which did not mention this issue in his later career. And I thought, maybe they are going a bit de mortuis nil nisi bonum on him. From that I was able to realise that earlier in his life Pilger might have been this great campaigning journalist who inspired my friend. But sadly I saw him only after he had turned into something else, disconnected from reality and with unpleasant allegiances.

In general you you can no more believe a word you read in the Telegraph, Times, etc, than the Mail and Express these days. So a bit sad that this is the only place so far where I have found a bit of balance.

[Tristan]

It was interesting to me to read some of the numerous encomiums we saw on his death, which did not mention this issue in his later career. And I thought, maybe they are going a bit de mortuis nil nisi bonum on him. From that I was able to realise that earlier in his life Pilger might have been this great campaigning journalist who inspired my friend. But sadly I saw him only after he had turned into something else, disconnected from reality and with unpleasant allegiances.

Honestly it wasn't just later in life. His journalism early on was pretty poor too. Maybe not the outright crank he became later, but still pretty poor. That Oliver Kamm article in the Telegraph (originally published in CapX) covers that.

[JQH]

Pilger was critical of US actions in Vietnam and I don't think there are many now who would say he was wrong. Where he went wrong, in my view, was in his assumption that everything the US did was bad and worse, that everything the US's geopolitical opponents did could be justified.

[Chris Preston]

Pilger was critical of US actions in Vietnam and I don't think there are many now who would say he was wrong. Where he went wrong, in my view, was in his assumption that everything the US did was bad and worse, that everything the US's geopolitical opponents did could be justified.

I agree with this. Pilger was more like a stopped clock than a true assessor of evidence. He saw the entire world through a lense that the US (and capitalism) were always wrong and their opponents were always right. To state that it is a bit more complicated than that is a major understatement. I had given up on Pilger years ago, because there was never any nuance and never any recognition that things change.