The scholarship will be awarded to “the student of journalism who has demonstrated an understanding of journalism as a humane profession independent of all vested interests to serve the public, not media proprietors.”
John Pilger speaking in Sydney in 2016. (Cathy Vogan)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia has announced the establishment of the John Pilger Scholarship to help a new generation of journalists learn to serve the public and not powerful interests, as exemplified by the long career of one of the greatest journalists of his generation.
Pilger was a print reporter, documentary filmmaker and author who was twice named Journalist of the Year in Britain, won a BAFTA Award, a Peabody Award and an International Emmy. His more than 60 films revealed rebellious U.S. soldiers in Vietnam; the immediate aftermath of the genocide in Cambodia; the plight of the Palestinians under occupation and the coming war with China among numerous other crucial topics.
In 1995 Pilger was a guest lecturer for one month as the Edward Wilson Fellow at Deakin, a research university in Melbourne, that traces its origin to 1887. He was accompanied by his partner, the book editor and journalist Jane Hill.
Pilger died on Dec. 30, 2023. In his will he left Deakin a gift to, in Pilger’s words, set up a scholarship to be awarded to “the student of journalism who has demonstrated an understanding of journalism as a humane profession independent of all vested interests to serve the public, not media proprietors, and tell unpalatable truths that may have been concealed from the public.”
The university said:
“Pilger’s bequest recognises that talent alone is not enough to sustain public-interest journalism. And by removing financial barriers to internships and other tools of the trade, the John Pilger Scholarship will widen access to the profession and help to ensure that journalism is shaped not by privilege or proximity, but by integrity, evidence and an unswerving commitment to serving the public.”
Pilger considered himself fortunate to have worked in an age when there was still space for journalists like himself to challenge the Establishment and he decried the closing of that space for young journalists entering the profession.
Pilger was a member of the board of Consortium News and was awarded CN‘s Gary Webb Press Freedom Award just months before he died.
Deakin University (Bob Tan/Wikipedia)
