Anthony Hayward: In The Name Of Justice - The television reporting of John Pilger

By BRIAN PRIESTLEY*

Journalists need their Che Guevaras, their Galahads, their paladins in the cause of truth. How else are we to convince ourselves that what we do is worthwhile?

And is there a conscience in the worldwide media which shines more strongly - which is more fearless, incorruptible and altogether super - than that of John Pilger?

If so, it has escaped Anthony Hayward's attention. If any criticism of his hero is allowed to emerge in the 372 pages of this book, it is immediately slapped down.

Pilger, of course, is worth many books. Born in Sydney, he first found fame on Britain's Daily Mirror, the once-brave newspaper which also nurtured Marge Proops and Bill Connor's "Cassandra" column. In its wartime prime, the Mirror always preferred the barrack room to the officers' mess, and Pilger's socialist background still suited its mood of the 60s.

When the Mirror lost its faith - because of the new owner, Robert Maxwell, and competition from Murdoch's Sun - Pilger remained true to his.

The result has been some of the most famous and powerful programmes in television history.

Here they are described in detail and by a disciple. There are the great programmes on Vietnam, on Cambodia, on the deaths of Iraqi children, on the Australian Aborigines, and many more. Alas, it is a book for the student or the enthusiast rather than the casual reader - there is nothing much here on how the research was done, or even the people involved. Pilger emerges as an angel with a fiery sword rather than a rounded human being.

He has shaken Downing St, rattled the White House and annoyed establishment figures up and down the world. But was he never wrong, or vexed by doubts? And were his opponents in the media always conservatives or capitalist lackeys? The journalist who criticised his "student poster politics and his scavenging of others' misery to further an old cause" was by no means a lone voice.

What are we to think of Pilger? I have only once seen a Pilger programme on a subject I knew a great deal about - race relations in Britain - and it seemed over-simple to the point of naivety. His villains are always the same - the top people, the capitalists, the bureaucrats. The heroes are the ordinary, decent folk, who are constantly betrayed, massacred, starved or cheated by the bosses or the right-wing media.

Can one believe it? After all, many of us have met sympathetic bureaucrats, excellent employers and politicians with a conscience. And ordinary folk have not always been decent in the history of British race relations, or Australia, or Cambodia or anywhere else. Many of them even read, and enjoy, the Sun.

This book, and John Pilger, see life as a battle between heroes and villains, between the good and the bad. An alternative theory might be that the world is full of people trying to do the best they can despite their ignorance, the size of the problems, and the blinkers inflicted by their own upbringing.

But would one welcome John Pilger in New Zealand? Oh, surely yes (for a few months), and let him begin with a good, keen look at our television news and current affairs.

He has, by the way, an excellent website which might be worth some study before deciding on Mr Hayward's book.

Bloomsbury

$39.95

* Brian Priestly formerly fronted TV's Fourth Estate and taught journalism at Canterbury University.