Pilger - purveyor of truth or propagandist?

John Pilger's "The War You Don't See" on ITV had the Twittersphere reaching for the hyperbole. But is it a case of swapping one propagandist for another?

During and after the Australian investigative journalist's latest documentary I followed the Twitter storm.  It was as if Pilger had become the next Messiah.  Hyperbole was to the fore, with many stating that the programme was the best in decades if not the best ever made.

The documentary showed horrific images, revealed appalling statistics and interviewed a range of key players about conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq.  It also discussed the manipulation of, and by, the media in its portayal of these events.  But there is a fine line between purveying truth and generating counter-propaganda.

In a Reuters interview about the programme, John Pilger states:  "That's the canker in all of this, it's the compulsion to quote, not necessarily believing the authority source. But then once you quote it and you put it out on the wires or you broadcast it, it takes on a sort of mantle of fact and that's where the whole teaching of journalism is wrong." Yet Pilger himself quotes shocking statistics without stating the sources as if they are gospel.

This may be heresy but is it just me, or is the world prepared to swallow everything they are told by John Pilger as easily as they apparently are to believe the mainstream media, simply because his content appears so contrary to the institutional perspective? Whilst much of what was revealed was shocking, horrific and thought provoking, very little of it was new.  The US helicopter attack on the journalists and van containing children, for example, has been on Wikileaks and other sources since April 2010.

Sure, Pilger is reknowned for uncovering 'the truth', but I think he's become lazy in his old age.  The same applies to those who see new media as the route to all dialogue yet seem surprised  by the production of information that is available with very little in-depth research required. John Pilger did little more than skate superficially over the issues, without providing the deeper level of context and analysis one would expect of a journalistic messiah, yet the viewing public seem to swallow it whole and without question.

Take the revelation that Barrack Obama opposed the Afghanistan/Iraq wars and spoke out against them during his election campaign, only to continue to prosecute them once in power.  Unless you have been living on another planet, it should be no suprise that the premise on which the US went to war, taking the UK and others with it, was based on little or no fact and for motivations far removed from what the citizens were told.  WikiLeaks has, if nothing else, served to reinforce that understanding.

However, what was Pilger expecting his audience to believe: that once Obama became President he would simply pull the troops out within a few weeks and end the invasion?  Politicians lie - no, really - and there is far more political context at play - as WikiLeaks has clearly shown. Pilger's too experienced to be that naive, isn't he?  So he can only be assuming (obviously correctly) that his stutus will be further elevated by playing on the naivety of his audience. The answer can be found on Twitter.

While Pilger asked his interviewees plenty of leading questions, it would appear that very few people are questioning whether his facts and conclusions are any less propagandist than the those he is attacking.  He attacked the BBC because Israel's Marc Regev was an acomplished propagandist and there was no "English-speaking, articulate equivalent" for the Palestinians - as if that was the BBC's fault and it is mandatory for them to create one.  In  fact, the PLO used spokeswoman and politician Dr Hanan Ashrawi to powerful  effect (and still do) but Hamas seem unable to provide a similar voice, for whatever reason (and I can't believe it is because of the media's ineptitude in being able to find them).

Undoubtedly, the BBC - along with other mainstream news outlets - comes under pressure from domestic and foreign governments and will probably bow to that more often than its audiences will ever know, on the basis that is understands which side it's licence fee is buttered on.  Yet by attacking the BBC for accepting a 'propagandist' from one side, Pilger implies that the voice from the opposition would not just provide 'balance', but that propaganda is acceptible, and possibly even more credible, providing you hear it from the side that suits your perspective.  Come on John, you're better than that.

John Pilger's closing comments were delivered - courtesy of a mainstream terrestrial broadcast channel - with the backdrop of candles and images of journalists killed in conflicts.  As a trained journalist myself, I can only mourn their loss and laud their incredible bravery.  However, Pilger sought to dedicate the programme to them, while at the same time attacking their employers and urging their colleagues to do a better job.

Apart from his final statements being so convoluted as to be virtually incomprehensible, his closing soundbite was: "The voices that we rely upon to keep the record straight ought to be those of the people not of power!" If that really is true, and I certainly support the underlying sentiment, then it's the citizen journalists with their mobile phones that are the true heroes and presenters of 'the facts'.  So where does that leave professionals like John Pilger?

Published 15th December, 2010

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