John Pilger is a world-renowned journalist, author and documentary filmmaker, who began his career in 1958 in his homeland, Australia, before moving to London in the 1960s.

He regards eye-witness as the essence of good journalism. He has been a foreign correspondent and a front-line war reporter, beginning with the Vietnam war in 1967. He is an impassioned critic of foreign military and economic adventures by Western governments.

"It is too easy," he says, "for Western journalists to see humanity in terms of its usefulness to 'our' interests and to follow government agendas that ordain good and bad tyrants, worthy and unworthy victims and present 'our' policies as always benign when the opposite is usually true. It's the journalist's job, first of all, to look in the mirror of his own society."

He believes a journalist also ought to be a guardian of the public memory and often quotes Milan Kundera: "The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Noam Chomsky wrote: "John Pilger's work has been a beacon of light in often dark times. The realities he has brought to light have been a revelation, over and over again, and his courage and insight a constant inspiration."

Harold Pinter wrote: "John Pilger unearths, with steely attention, the facts, the filthy truth, and tells it as it is."

In 2009, John Pilger was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, Australia's international human rights award.

For more biographical details, go to the introduction in Articles

This Much I Know - Observer interview with John Pilger

Family
Son Sam, born 1973, and daughter Zoe, born 1984

Recreations
Swimming, sunning, reading and mulling

Education
Sydney High School
Four-year journalism cadetship scheme, Australian Consolidated Press

Career Summary
1958-62: Reporter, freelance writer, sports writer and sub-editor, Daily & Sunday Telegraph, Sydney
1962: Freelance correspondent, Italy
1962-63: Middle East desk, Reuter, London
1963-86: Reporter, sub-editor, feature writer and Chief Foreign Correspondent, Daily Mirror
1986-88: Editor-in-Chief and a founder, News on Sunday, London
1969-71: Reporter, World in Action, Granada Television
1974-81: Reporter/Producer, Associated Television
1981: Documentary film-maker, Central and Carlton Television

Accredited war correspondent Vietnam, Cambodia, Egypt, India, Bangladesh, Biafra, Middle East

Contributor
BBC Television Australia, BBC Radio, BBC World Service, London Broadcasting, ABC Television, ABC Radio Australia

Publications
Daily Mirror, The Guardian, The Independent, New Statesman, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation: New York, The Age: Melbourne, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Bulletin: Sydney, plus French, Italian, Scandinavian, Canadian, Japanese and other newspapers and periodicals.

Books
See Books

Films
See Films & DVDs

Play
The Last Day (1983)

Honours
D. Litt, Staffordshire University
D. Phil, Dublin City University
D. Arts, Oxford Brookes University
D. Laws, St.Andrew's University
D. Phil, Kingston University
D. Univ, The Open University
1995 Edward Wilson Fellow, Deakin University, Melbourne
Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor, Cornell University, USA

Awards include
1966: Descriptive Writer of the Year
1967: Reporter of the Year
1967: Journalist of the Year
1970: International Reporter of the Year
1974: News Reporter of the Year
1977: Campaigning Journalist of the Year
1979: Journalist of the Year
1979-80: UN Media Peace Prize, Australia
1980-81: UN Media Peace Prize, Gold Medal, Australia
1979: TV Times Readers' Award
1990: The George Foster Peabody Award, USA
1991: American Television Academy Award ('Emmy')
1991: British Academy of Film and Television Arts - The Richard Dimbleby Award
1990: Reporters San Frontiers Award, France
1995: International de Television Geneve Award
2001: The Monismanien Prize (Sweden)
2003: The Sophie Prize for Human Rights (Norway)
2003: EMMA Media Personality of the Year
2004: Royal Television Society Best Documentary, 'Stealing a Nation'
2008: Best Documentary, One World Awards
2009: Sydney Peace Prize