Pilger’s contrasts make him credible

Pic: Pilger with Guy Berger

Crusading journo John Pilger confronted some contradictions last week — and came out well on top of them.

In Grahamstown to collect an honorary doctorate from Rhodes University, the angry Australian who champions the cause of the global underdog found himself to be quite the celeb.

It’s an irony that didn’t escape him, but he bore it well — for instance, asking as many questions as issuing answers when interacting with starry-eyed students and other fans.

Another clash he faced was reconciling his damning critique of the media with receiving a doctorate from a university whose journalism graduates now populate much of the South African industry.

In fact, Pilger often brands journalists as unconscious dupes of dominant ideology, indeed as the running dogs of officialdom. He regards journalism as being so hijacked by corporatism that it “normalises the unthinkable” — like creating climates for governments to wage war without just cause or mandate.

Yet this is a critic who is also nevertheless very active within the industry he consistently attacks. Besides his prolific newspaper articles, he has written 11 books and produced at least one documentary a year over the past 30 years.

I asked him, informally, about the contradiction of hammering the media — and yet also hobnobbing with them.

His assessment is that the mainstream cannot be reformed, but that it can be “navigated”. Alternative media, he said, are important — but not the answer.

Isn’t it the case, I queried, that the noble goals of journalism ensure that the mainstream media at least partly live up to their claims?

Pilger’s answer: the problem is that when the romantic view of journalism comes up against reality, it can only produce cynicism. Far better, he advised, to take a sceptical approach — recognising the romantic as an aspiration, and not getting sucked into perpetuating a myth as if it were the truth.

I can agree with that. But there is another concern. Pilger has previously said that journalists ought to be called to account for their work. Isn’t that proposal rather risky, I ventured?

After all, even in terms of his analysis, journalists already problematically account to employers and elite sources who tend to support the ruling social order. We all know governments would love to see systems that sew up what journalists can say.

His response: accountability should be to audiences, not to the powerful. Well, I persisted, couldn’t even that still lead to journalists making compromises? For instance, requiring them to pander to mass prejudices — instead of having the independence to provoke and challenge people.

It was a trick question in a way: shaking up a complacent public is precisely what Pilger himself is famous for.

(He did it, incidentally, in his graduation speech — alerting his comfortable listeners to the surprise news that the South African police had recorded 10 000 public protests in 2007.)

Accepting my point, Pilger argued that accountability did not mean following an audience entirely. He cited past experience of British papers refusing to feature black people because “the readers would rebel”. What is this accountability then, I asked? He replied with unexpected mildness: it means giving people the right to reply to journalists.

And so hove into view another contradiction about Pilger. The supposedly fire-breathing militant is not completely consumed by fury; in fact, he can also be pretty convivial.

I didn’t get to ask him why his website is www.johnpilger.com and not “www.johnpilger.org”. Nor whether he has become a global brand that imposes unwelcome bonds of predictability and mandatory media-bashing — even when (as in South Africa) the stereotype doesn’t quite fit.

But I think I know how he might answer anyway. This is a person conscious of the contradictions of (his) life, and not given to glib resolutions of the tensions entailed.

Whatever his response, personal complexity doesn’t elude him. The result is that Pilger comes across as a creature with cred. In my view, a good reason (on top of the others) for his honorary doctorate. Now, if only others of us could “navigate” like that.

Selected quotes from Pilger’s past speeches

Go through the New York Times on any day, and check the sources of the main political stories — domestic and foreign — you’ll find they’re dominated by government and other established interests. That is the essence of professional journalism.

… the BBC gave just 2% of its coverage of Iraq to antiwar dissent — 2%. That is less than the antiwar coverage of ABC, NBC, and CBS. A second study by the University of Wales shows that in the build-up to the invasion, 90% of the BBC’s references to weapons of mass destruction suggested that Saddam Hussein actually possessed them, and that by clear implication Bush and Blair were right.

… we must not fall into the trap of believing that the media speak for the public.

There’s nothing wrong with journalism, it’s a wonderful privilege … But it’s the way it’s practised. It’s as if it has been hijacked by corporatism and we should take it back.