John Richard Pilger (9 October 1939 – 30 December 2023) was an Australian journalist, writer, scholar, and documentary filmmaker. Based mostly in the UK since 1962, John Pilger has been an internationally influential investigative reporter, a strong critic of Australian, British and American foreign policy since his early reporting days in Vietnam, and has also condemned official treatment of Indigenous Australians. Twice winner of Britain’s Journalist of the Year Award, he has won many other awards for his documentaries on foreign affairs and culture. He was also a cherished ZFriend.
David Mcbride is a whistleblower Australian Defence Force’s unethical, harmful and highly politicised leadership which fostered a culture of impunity in Afghanistan. Today, David Mcbride is advocate of free speech and shares experiences with some unique guests from across different media aspects.
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This rambling conversation between two “old guys” is terrific. (I’m an old guy, too, by definition but not by heart or continuing to learn!) Of course I have seen many of John Pilger’s films, they are exceptional. I am married to a Nicaraguan who has lived the history of that country and I lived there for a time, too, and was a colleague with her at the national university where she taught for 25 years. I first learned of Nicaragua, really learned, from a film of John’s named simply “Nicaragua,” and have watched it several times since. Pilger is in my “hall of fame” with Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Eduardo Galeano, Arundhati Roy, well the list is too long, but they have been my mentors for many years.
As a university student, I was a “Latin American specialist” at a so-called “good university” with a well-known program in this field. Frankly, classes were filled with wasted time, stereotypes, superficialities, and pretty much fictitious teaching of Latin America. I soon learned this after I graduated and eventually lived in two Latin American countries for many years. But a conversation like this by ZNetwork is invaluable and it’s one of the good things now possible with modern technology. Thanks, again!