Campaigning journalist, filmmaker John Pilger dies aged 84

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Veteran investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger has died age 84 on Saturday, his family announced on X, formerly known as Twitter, on New Year’s Eve.

“His journalism and documentaries were celebrated around the world, but to his family he was simply the most amazing and loved Dad, Grandad and partner. Rest In Peace”, the post read with an accompanying photograph of the late Australian journalist.

Born in Bondi, New South Wales in 1939, Pilger relocated to London, England in the 1960s and worked for the Daily Mirror newspaper, ITV’s former investigative programme “World in Action” and Reuters.

He covered conflicts in Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Biafra, and was named journalist of the year in 1967 and 1979.

An outspoken critic of western foreign policy and of Australia’s treatment of Indigenous Australians, Pilger was also a successful documentary filmmaker who made over 50 films.

His 1979 film “Year Zero: The Silent Death Of Cambodia”, shot less than a year after the Khmer Rouge downfall, gave a stark insight into the impact of the regime’s rule.

Pilger won an Emmy award for his 1990 follow-up ITV documentary, “Cambodia: The Betrayal”.

In 1991, the filmmaker won the Richard Dimbleby award at the BAFTAs for his contribution to broadcast journalism.

In November 2013, Pilger accused his native Australia of running a system of apartheid towards its Aboriginal communities in an interview about his documentary “Utopia”.

Named after a large region in the north of the country, “Utopia” documents high levels of disease and asbestos-ridden housing, imprisonment rates eight times higher than those for black South Africans under apartheid and male life expectancy of as little as 37 years in one community as evidence of the failings of the state and its passive racism.

A friend of Wikileaks founder and Australian national Julian Assange, Pilger campaigned for his release in the UK courts over the years, calling him an “unsung hero” who stood up to the powerful.

Assange made global headlines in early 2010 when WikiLeaks published a classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.