Thursday January 01 1970
An evening with John Pilger
dublin |
rights, freedoms and repression |
event notice 
Tuesday September 28, 2010 17:11
by Amnesty1 - Amnesty International Ireland
info at amnesty dot ie
'It is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers without understanding the hidden agendas of the message and myths that surround it' - John Pilger
John Pilger is a world-renowned journalist, author and documentary filmmaker, who began his career in 1958 in his homeland, Australia, before moving to London in the 1960s.
He regards eye-witness as the essence of good journalism. He has been a foreign correspondent and a front-line war reporter, beginning with the Vietnam war in 1967. He is an impassioned critic of foreign military and economic adventures by Western governments.
"It is too easy," he says, "for Western journalists to see humanity in terms of its usefulness to 'our' interests and to follow government agendas that ordain good and bad tyrants, worthy and unworthy victims and present 'our' policies as always benign when the opposite is usually true. It's the journalist's job, first of all, to look in the mirror of his own society."
He believes a journalist also ought to be a guardian of the public memory and often quotes Milan Kundera: "The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."
Noam Chomsky wrote: "John Pilger's work has been a beacon of light in often dark times. The realities he has brought to light have been a revelation, over and over again, and his courage and insight a constant inspiration."
Harold Pinter wrote: "John Pilger unearths, with steely attention, the facts, the filthy truth, and tells it as it is."
In 2009, John Pilger was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, Australia's international human rights award.
Comments (9 of 9)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9"It's the journalist's job, first of all, to look in the mirror of his own society."
When I worked as a chief reporter in the UK from 90-95, the then active government attempted to introduce legislation making it 'illegal' for a journalist/reporter to refer to previous bad conduct of a politician in any material published about that politician preceding elections.
And they tried to bring it in through the back door.
Vigilance and the integrity to be committed to honest causes is the bedrock of good journalism.
Besides interested parties, every so-called journalist in Dublin should attend and see what a real journalist looks like
In my humble opinion i feel John Pilger is perhaps amongst the top 20 journalists i have ever had the pleasure of reading
some of his most amazing in depth investigative reports , and thats saying something coming from me .
I wish John well ..........
at 40 euro a pop for tickets and run by a private for profit company "seminars.ie", can amnesty say where all the money will be going that is likely to be generated by this event and also can they say whether Mr Pilger (whom I greatly respect) has given his approval for his talk being made so exclusive and for profit. I would have thought he would prefer to get his message out to the wider public and not just a rich bored chic clique.
Would anyone agree that Pilger is slightly over-rated and has been on a bit of a polemic vibe for a while. Sure we all hate reading corporate propaganda masquerading as journalism, but Pilger is just more propaganda from a different point of view. He's not as bad as idiots like Michael Moore but he does know what buttons to oush in order to get people to buy his books etc.
I certainly wouldn't find him 'inspiring' enough to part with €40
For anyone who doesn't yet know, this talk has been cancelled. The reason why, I don't know.
More's the pity; it's cancelled alright: Accorting to the AI website: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED - REFUNDS WILL BE ISSUED SHORTLY
I heard thru the grapevine how the 40euros cost of tickets may have been a contributing factor ,.
Its our Loss .
Amnesty seems to think we're still in the Celtic Tiger dream-cloud. I adore Pilger's writing, but €40 in Ireland right now is simply wrong.
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