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Pilger: Wikileaks is Necessary 'Revolution in Journalism'
WikiLeaks, Web to Revolutionize Reporting, says Journalist and Filmmaker John Pilger
LONDON - Revelations on the WikiLeaks website which have enraged governments around the world should force the traditional media to rely less on official sources, award-winning journalist John Pilger said.
In an interview to discuss his film "The War You Don't See," the veteran Australian reporter told Reuters the internet, and more specifically WikiLeaks, would bring about a "revolution" in journalism which too often failed to do its job properly.
One reason the media did not challenge the U.S. and British governments' justification for going to war in Iraq in 2003, later shown to be misplaced, was their eagerness to believe the official version of events, Pilger argued.
He said the same was true of television coverage of the Israeli attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, when British broadcasters appeared willing only to use Israeli video rather than trawling the internet for alternative footage.
"That mindset that only authority can really determine the 'truth' on the news, that's a form of embedding that really now has to change," said Pilger, who has covered conflicts in Vietnam and Cambodia, written books and made several acclaimed documentaries.
"There's no question about the pressure on it to change coming from the internet and coming from WikiLeaks -- it will change," he added in the interview ahead of Tuesday evening's broadcast of his new film.
"That is 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.
"Authority has its place, but the skepticism about authority must be ingrained in people."
In The War You Don't See, Pilger interviews leading broadcast journalists including Dan Rather and Rageh Omaar, who agree that journalists failed in their basic duties during the build-up to the Iraq conflict.
It seeks to highlight how British television reporters based in London were quick to accept what they were being told by officials in Westminster, which did not necessarily reflect what was happening on the ground in Iraq.
OTHER SIDE OF STORY
The film shows how independent journalists occasionally provided evidence that countered the official version, while WikiLeaks was a relatively new source of sometimes disturbing information with the potential to embarrass the authorities.
The documentary opens with extended clips from classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff. WikiLeaks released the footage in April.
Pilger also interviews WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, remanded in custody in Britain last week after Sweden issued a European arrest warrant.
Assange jokes that since it is officially wrong to retain information and to destroy it, his only choice was to publish.
Pilger, one of several prominent figures who offered a surety to secure bail for Assange, praised the recent publication of secret U.S. embassy documents which have attracted global media coverage.
"I think the WikiLeaks disclosures have been like watching a great parade of wonderful scoops," Pilger said in the interview.
"(It is) basic rich journalism that is telling people how the world works. It's not just telling them what a prime minister said. It's not framing it in how governments or other vested interests want us to think about something.
"It's giving us the story in their words. I think it's a revolution in journalism."
The War You Don't see is aired on ITV on Tuesday evening and is being screened at select theatres across Britain.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
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Show AllRoyce
We have met the media, and he is us. (Apologies to Pogo.)
I'm sure the same is going on in Afghanistan - the same soldiers conducting the same tactics.
Somehow this film needs to be disseminated to as many organizations in the U.S. as possible. A command showing should be done for Congress, the president, and the Supreme Court.
I sat through interviews of Iraqi refugees in Damascus 2 years ago. Seeing the brutality of the effects of war is not pleasant. If more of us saw the reality and consequences of the horrors perpetrated by our military in our name and our unspoken support, maybe more of us would stand up and demand an end to our brutal invasions and occupations.
We may start thinking about exactly what terrors and mayhem we are paying for through our taxes instead of health, education and jobs for our workers.
Pilger is a real hero !!!
So is Julian Assange!
And Bradley Manning!
Indeed!!!
Have to take issue with one statement in the article.
"One reason the media did not challenge the U.S. and British governments' justification for going to war in Iraq in 2003, later shown to be misplaced, was their eagerness to believe the official version of events, Pilger argued"
Now this is coming from the Reuters reporter and NOT an exact quote of Pilger... as can be seen.
This statement is patently absurd and a lie. The fawning media shitbags simply chose to close their collective eyes, hold their noses, and report(disseminate lies)whatever the gov't told them to... witness Judith Miller of the NYT who was later fired, since she became an embarrassment unable to be spun in a positive fashion.
There was plenty of alternative media reporting showing that the claims of Gov't were patent lies and misinformation. The MSM chose to ignore it an continue to be stenographers for "Power" ... since it pays much better than the alternative.
Pilger is nobody's fool and certainly knows this
i would like to see these 'enraged' governments around the world taking some action...............
Make no mistake, the winds are changing and a lot of it is as a result of WikiLeaks.
Greatest Production in the history of the media
namely, the lead up to the war in Iraq
this claim is made in the insightful book by the political philosopher, Sheldon Wolin. "Democracy, Inc.: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism."
Don, Wolin is a fantastic asset in confronting the ruling-elite's global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE, which hides behind the facade of its totally 'owned' TWO-Party 'Vichy' sham of faux democratic government.
His latest book (along with Hedges' "Empire of Illusion" and "Death of the Liberal Class", Andrew Bacevich's "Washington Rules", the late Chalmers Johnson's "Dismantling the Empire", Thomas Frank's "Wrecking Crew", and everything by Hardt and Negri) is one of the very best on Empire and its deceitful methods.
As Michael Parenti would say we must be first "Against Empire" in order to as Negri et al say begin "The Coming Insurrection" ---- and Wikileaks is certainly a catalyst to begin the coming insurrection!
Best,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
The MSM networks and their staff are bought and paid for and told what not to reveal and how much or how little attention they should give to a news story ... because they are owned by the Mega-Mega-rich with the interests of Zionism and the military might/dictatorship of the U.S.in mind.
The whole nest of vipers control and make profits and they are always after more of what others have in various partnerships with the same kind of people with the same interests who happen to be in our government, our corporations, and in governments and corporations elsewhere, and with the international financial establishments. One does not have to look very far to find the vipers or their nests.
One of these days maybe The People will have uncorrupted governments of their own and have a special department called "Critter Control."
Until there is a power shift, I don't think what John Pilger advocates will happen any time soon. We'd all benefit from knowing the truth. Maybe Julian Assange has unlocked Pandora's box and there's no going back. We can hope.
/cm
i'm not in favour of 'critter control'. i think we should go for 'cretin control'.
but i get your point cm..................
would that we be living in mythological times and all these stories be myth......
who knows; one day they may be.............
"the veteran Australian reporter told Reuters the internet, and more specifically WikiLeaks, would bring about a "revolution" in journalism which too often failed to do its job properly."
Failing to do its job properlty is a fair comment. "revolution" i9n Journalism" because of Wikileaks? Surely he isn't that naive?
The end result of all this is not going to be what these folks have in mind.
a new revolutionary open system of information will replace the old MSM.
why, scared out of your mind?
Spoken like a true reactionary asshole.
A perfect time for Real Revolution: December 25, 2010.
There are those, of course, who do not want us to speak about the now revealed government secrets. Why? Because while the truncheon (and Taser) may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power.
Words offer the means to meaning and, for those who will listen, to the enunciation of truth, and the truth is that there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?
Cruelty and indifference, intolerance and oppression--and where one you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting submission.
How did this happen?
Who's to blame?
Certainly there are those who are more responsible than others--and they will be held accountable--but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.
I know why you did it.
I know you were afraid.
Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.
Fear got the best of you.
And in your panic, you turned to the President.
He promised you order.
He promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.
What WikiLeaks did was to remind this country of what it has forgotten.
Mr. Assange's hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice and freedom are more than words. They are perspectives.
So if you’ve seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you, then I would suggest that you allow Julian Assange's arrest to pass unmarked.
But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand in support of WikiLeaks.--V
Could we do it at the Capitol on Christmas Day?
I quite love you. and would you mind if i take this to circulate?
Certainly. And may the gods bless you abundantly.
You sound like a scary movie character. Go look in the mirror yourself.
I am now 69 years of age ---- I have wondered for many years what happened to the journalism schools in this country. As a stripling lad, I was, for a while, a stringer for the area's largest circulation daily--- in another county ---- my editor regularly beat me (figuratively) about the head and shoulders to raise my awareness of the need to expose the nefarious, and not to shade in any direction the facts.
This has been lost ---- and a pity that is.
The same newspaper is now owned by a major national chain and is a cheerleader for those very things that I would have been chastized for doing. dh
journalism in america has always been part and parcel of the american capistalist system, never better or worse.
only, American capitalism has run its course and arrived at the fascist state ruled by the military and intelligence elites hired by corporates and financiers.
soon, the american capitalism will be the victim of its own success.
prepare yourself, friends and neighbors for the crunch time
by methodically withdrawing from the system and building an alternative to capitalism.
journalism in america has always been part and parcel of the american capistalist system, never better or worse.
only, American capitalism has run its course and arrived at the fascist state ruled by the military and intelligence elites hired by corporates and financiers.
soon, the american capitalism will be the victim of its own success.
prepare yourself, friends and neighbors for the crunch time
by methodically withdrawing from the system and building an alternative to capitalism.
The hope is that Pilger's documentary will soon be seen in the U.S., even if that means that it will be shown in independent theaters instead of more mainstream theaters across the country and/or on television channels such as PBS or IFC,
Don't hold your breath on PBS showing that film -- they are MSM as well
So many Americans are condemning Wikileaks without knowing anything about what is contained in the documents. The sad thing is they will go on doing this because other than John Pilger and a few others none of the news people will tell what is in the documents for fear of being called a traitor. Most people I know do not know John Pilger. I hope this will change and Americans will wake up and start to read, watch and listen to journalist who tell the truth like John Pilger.
Unfortunately, this has been the American tendency for a very long time. To believe in stuff they are told by "very serious people who know more than the average person" to the point of being willing to torture and kill or otherwise destroy others based soley on what they are told as opposed to what they have personally experienced. To be fair, this has been fairly common behavior for a large percentage of the world throughout history, particularly as regards religions. But Americans do seem very eager to believe the worst in others and the best in themselves, so rather than facts and good reporting keeping them informed and able to act appropriately, the facts and objective observations only serve to solidify their unreal beliefs. They feel under attack and have to defend instead of listen and question. You'd think with all the technology and supposed increased intelligence that humans have acquired, particularly Americans, that they would be able to get beyond the insane habit of believing and judging based on hearsay as opposed to their own experience. Sad.
At least for the corrupted american mainstream media that is more involved in obfuscations and disinformation for the american people, wikileaks has become an added source of truth and real information along with certain authors of books and the internet and foreign news sources, in short real investigative journalism, that is totally missing from the above mentioned american msm.
Unfortunately, the american msm has worked its 'magic' so well and captured so many of the gullible members of the well cultivated dumbstream garden that trying to bring truth to them will be a frightening task tantamount to a kid just being told that their santa claus, tooth fairy or easter bunny are not real and for the religious, an even more excruciatingly revelation that a person named jesus never existed in any real life form. Or that the earth or the universe was not created on, what... October, 23, 4004 BC at 9am. In a sense, the dumbstream have 'become comfortably dumb'.
Journalism is dead. The media has been replaced by the Ministry of Truth.
might mite
'Failing to do its job properlty is a fair comment. "revolution" i9n Journalism" because of Wikileaks? Surely he isn't that naive? ''
Nothing naive about it.. you sound naive.. too many people are that way..
Look for the pic of ASSANGE on the cover of 'TIME'. Nopte where the American flag is wrapped.....If you don't see that as showing that it is not only in the sneered at China and Japan of Americans for their banning the internet...it is YOUR turn now...
Cyber war can empower the people. They have/had NO POWER against weaponry the police and army have, before now. A bloodless coup.
¬sc
Assange not only has Pilger on side (and all who value and think like Pilger)... he has GEOFFREY ROBERTSON on his side too..
An australian who years ago, as a young lawyer sent the top Lawyers of London who joked about coming up against this young Australian lawyer ('what a joke')... scurrying back to London covered in ridicule.
Robertson is very rich and very famous (he has no need of any more of either). His reason for living is : Human Rights.
¬sc
J Pilger has created a political masterpiece. This needs to go viral. I do not have the youtube limk to post.
Please someone post the link. Let it go viral. Send it to all your friends and ask kindly that they pass it on.
It is time people everywhere saw some truth.
I would recomend in addition the panorama program on tonight as well as it connects the dots of resistance, wiki, student riots and media control.
Maybe rev can happen.
Can you help?!!!!!
I wrote Mr Pilger to get permision to extend his piece virally through an MPEG.
Wikileaks is more than "necessary to begin the 'revolution in media'" --- it is one of the prime movers and catalysts in starting the entire peoples' anti-Empire movement to bring forth "The Coming Insurrection" of the people "Against Empire".
Wikileaks is certainly, and in an 'in your face style', confronting the ruling-elite's global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE, which hides behind the facade of its 'owned' TWO-Party 'Vichy' sham of democracy here, subordinate Empire-states like the UK, Israel, etc, and the equally 'Vichy' corporatist media.
This is the beginning of a Peoples' Anti-EMPIRE Movement "Against Empire" (as Parenti writes) and the beginning of "The Coming Insurrection" (as Negri et al write).
All 'democracy-thinking' global citizens of the non-elite human race should for our sake, the sake of our children, the sake of our world and species, contribute to Wikileaks, and boycott all corporations and governments that are attacking the precious freedoms of speech (truth and thought).
The global Empire needs to not only degrade our world to pre-FDR status for the benefit of the 'Empire-thinking' ruling-elite, but to feudal, pre-Renaissance, pre-enlightenment, and pre-rational thought eras --- when Empire was King!
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
at times like this
we need to keep our critical thinking intact...
http://tinyurl.com/399jvkw
btw,
i wonder what happened to this thread ?
http://tinyurl.com/2fnby5z
after cd was down for a couple of hrs yesterday
now i couldnt post or reply
It seems that there is no opportunity to post on any article with a date before today - How come?
i was in the midst of posting a reply in this thread yesterday
http://tinyurl.com/2fnby5z
when cd announced that comments section would be closed for *a few hrs*
later it said the server was down for maintenance
after the service is restored
comments section seemed to remain closed ??
John Pilger is a true hero of real journalism- and he's been doing it for a very long time- Vietnam, East Timor, Palestine, Iraq sanctions- a story few people still know anything about. plus he's never been shy about calling out the legions of stenographers and cheerleaders in the msm.
I'm not a legal scholar, and it probably will never happen, but I do believe some of the people in the media should be tried as war criminals for printing mendacious propaganda as news.
it's kinda hard for me to believe so many citizens are so gullible as to believe what these twits were reporting. I did not have much contrary evidence on hand, but those Iraq lies were so patently false I don't know how anyone could believe them.
"some of the people in the media should be tried as war criminals for printing mendacious propaganda as news."
Yes abuelo. There is a reason why "Bearing False Witness" is in the top ten No-NOs. It can cause loss of reputation or loss of life. Our parrotting press has abetted mass murder over and over again.
Joe
"One reason the media did not challenge the U.S. and British governments' justification for going to war in Iraq in 2003, later shown to be misplaced, was their eagerness to believe the official version of events, Pilger argued."
As a previous poster stated, BULLSH*T!!
The reason no one challenged the justifications for the Iraq war was because NO ONE AT ALL challenged the official explanation of the events that took place on 9/11.
Everyone was so cowed/sympathetic/patriotic that easily the most egregious crime in American history - committed in broad daylight - escaped the scrutiny of even the most "serious" of journalists and researchers.
ALL OF THEM swallowed every single morsel of the government's explanation of that day without a scintilla of further examination or research.
By the time the Iraq War was being launched all of them were comfortable in the abdication of their roles.
So, please don't try and sell us on Wikileaks being the "dawning of the Age of Aquarius", Mr. Pilger.
You and your cohorts have had AMPLE time and opportunity to help delve into the single biggest story of your collective careers and you've all done absolutely NOTHING!!!
Oh, but NOW everything's changed.
Gee, when did I here that comment before?
Hmm, I think it may have been around 9 years ago.
Actually, by the time it was realized that the official story was not credible, all those who dared to critize or question the event, were systematically discredited by the major reporting agencies and their behind the curtains associates. Dan Rather was labled as one using poor journalism practices. He was driven by CBS to make an apology. Dan Rather if you don't know is a premier journalist of the 20th and 21st century. His story about GWB's military service was true, including the IBM typewriter functions claimed to be impossible. BS, I did it routinely. The man (Bush) was not eligible to hold the office according to law. George Washington is probably rolling in his grave-but not surprised-that a DESERTER was allowed to preside in the Office of President of the United States. Try printing an article on that subject and I suspect you will see what filth, crawls beneath that rock.
The Rather episode was amazing in that anyone who was informed knew what Rather was reporting on was true as there were many books on W available before the election that detailed his military service or lack thereof.
Yet NO ONE among his cohorts tried to help him.
Not one person of press would dare cross the Bush machine to tell us the truth.
Much like the events of 911.
All of these journalists are so SHOCKED now about the Iraq War and the lead-up to it - the lies, the fabrications, etc. - now that they have supposedly some concrete proofs.
But the Iraq War is safe.
W and all the other criminals WANT journalists to report on the lies of the Iraq War.
Why?
So they don't go back 2 years earlier and start asking questions about the day that started it all.
NOT "everyone", Polycarp. Read my letter of February 9, 2003 to Mr. Bush. It's available at pcnaples.org under John's Letters.
Previous letters of exhortation on the same subject were mysteriously deleted but many are still there.
Look also at "events" on the same site. Here in the hotbed of Limbaugh-land hundreds of us turned out to express our total opposition during his appearances here in our town.
My favorite placard still works. It says: Where's the evidence Mr. Bush" and next to me was his life-sized image in cardboard with the sign around its neck: Liar.
I really was talking mostly about journalists and members of the media.
Yes, many citizens understood then and understand now that the events of that day have never made sense.
However, we lack an audience.
Even very reliable commentators and investigative journalists treat the events of that day as if it were taboo to even raise one of the myriad of inconsistencies about what transpired leading up to the event, the event itself and its after-effects.
For all the talk now of Wikileaks and the the transformation of journalism, I would hope that some of our most esteemed voices would finally break that taboo and treat it like the major historical event that it was, one worthy of serious scrutiny and questions instead of snide dismissal and fear.
Yes, Wikileaks could potentially change the journalism concerning future events but why not start with some past events - one huge one in particular - that has been conspicuously overlooked?
“Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness.”
--- George Orwell
We discuss why our mega media\news organizations exhaust time and resources giving us virtually meaningles and shallow reports, when real news with national consequences are being ignored or concealed. Many reasons may exist of course, but the evidence seems to confirm that the primary reason has to do with giving the doggie a bone. World War III started and it is a war for power and control through truth and knowledge or the manipulation of truth and knowledge.
revolution...my favourite work...word....sweet honey in the rcccccccckkkikkkikikokkkhoney in the rooooooook
...I think I"m goona be reported.
E
at where the personal is political ... we win!!!!!!
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/219696-Who-is-Behind-Wikileaks-
John, please read
Stieg would be proud.