John Pilger, who has died of pulmonary fibrosis aged 84, was a journalist who never shirked from saying the unsayable. Across half a century, in newspapers and in his documentary films – many for ITV, but later also in the cinema – he became an ever stronger voice for those without a voice, and a thorn in the side of those in authority.
He was a fervent critic of US and British foreign policy. In 2006, on a panel at Columbia University, New York, to discuss Breaking the Silence: War, Lies and Empire, Pilger asserted that “journalists in the so-called mainstream bear much of the responsibility” for the devastation and lives lost in Iraq, by not challenging and exposing “the lies of Bush and Blair”.
