John Pilger: October 9, 1939-December 30, 2023

• IT was an excellent and fitting tribute to John Pilger by film-maker Christopher Hird, (Look back on anger, Review, February 9).

Although there are so many events locally worth highlighting, it is with the international perspective that Pilger opened us up to events that were taking shape in the world, currently the events in Gaza, which he had constantly reported throughout his career.

From Vietnam to Cambodia, from East Timor to Myanmar, to the depopulation of Diego Garcia as the American air base took ownership of the small island.

Christopher Hird mentioned that Sir Robin Day refused to present Pilger with the prestigious Dimbleby award. I did not know this but it came as no surprise as Day was a celebrated establishment presenter and not an investigative journalist.

I have been privileged to have seen John Pilger as guest speaker at his documentary films and fundraisers for good causes that he campaigned for.

In the mid-1990s he had reported on the struggle of the Liverpool dockers; at a massive rally at Conway Hall, he stood shoulder to shoulder with locked out dockers who were getting enormous international support, when much of the media here clearly did not want to know.

It took a human rights journalist of Pilger’s stature to raise the profile of the Liverpool dockers.

John Pilger was a journalist of the old school, a genuine investigative journalist, who set the standards in his newspaper articles, his books and his films.

CLLR MICK GILGUNN
Labour, Tollington ward