Talk:John Pilger/Archive 4

Other work
Some of Pilger's other work should be added, for example- In 2012, Pilger was a member of the interim consultative committee of the International Organization for a Participatory Society, founded in 2012.

refs as follows-







Jonpatterns (talk) 15:15, 12 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Although the blog on the IOPS website is still being updated, it does not seem to be a very active society; the Al Jazeera article is nearly 3 years old. Pilger is the kind of public figure who puts his name to many initiatives without necessarily having much involvement. This seems to be the case here, and IOPS has made only a limited impact. Although Google comes up with many reference to IOPS, this is insufficient to establish this organisation's notability. Few of them count as reliable sources for the purposes of Wikipedia, and the IOPS website itself is not third-party. Philip Cross (talk) 15:34, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Yugoslavia
Why nothing on Pilger's apologetics for Serbian atrocities against the Kosovars? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.172.116.92 (talk) 01:40, 26 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Or for that matter, his recent (false) assertion of Milosevic's innocence. This needs work, but I think I found no usable third-party sources on the Pilger Milosevic connection when I searched Google a couple of years ago. Will have to try again. Philip Cross (talk) 07:54, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

"Big Brotherland"
I think the point he's making by using this phrase is that television executives today would prefer to make "reality" TV series (like Big Brother) rather than investigative documentaries such as Pilger's, which is why I think he's referring to the TV franchise rather than the character from 1984. Then again, one of Pilger's other favourite themes is the extent to which media current affairs coverage unconsciously reflects the point of view of those in power - so I suppose you could argue the point either way. MFlet1 (talk) 11:38, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

TV columns & the War on Democracy
This edit basically flips the content from simply explaining what the film is about, as you might expect an encyclopedia would aim to do, to kicking off the description with a negative attack, sourced not even to a serious appraisal of the film but to a newspaper's TV review column, where comment on the film was bundled up with that on other programmes. As noted in edit summaries, it's questionable whether this is decent enough content for a serious criticial response section in the main page on the actual film, but it certainly doesn't belong here, let alone as the defining description of the film. Saying "it's in the Telegraph, which is RS, hence has to go in" is a pretty weak argument in this context, as is making the point that it's not wholly negative, especially when it's been incorporated in the way it has here, ie by pulling out the negative to top the section. I agree the bit on the film needs more sourcing, and I know the user in question doesn't like John Pilger (and lots of other people), but can we please rein this in a bit and not turn everything into a propaganda fight based on pithy media commentary, especially commentary as flimsy and obscure as this?  N-HH   talk / edits  10:21, 28 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I will be adding material to the section again and hope other sources meet with your approval. The article on The War on Democracy contains a review by Andrew Billen (The Times TV critic in 2007) and Peter Bradshaw (film critic of The Guardian), with which I will try to resolve the sourcing issue first. As fat as I am aware, Noam Chomsky or Seumas Milne have not written about this entry in John Pilger's oeuvre, so it is a case of having to make do with mere reviewers. Philip Cross (talk) 10:58, 28 December 2016 (UTC)


 * This is slightly better than what you tried before, but as noted I question whether we need much critical reception and detailed quotation here at all, whether from TV reviewers or your personal betes noires. The film already has its own page, where much of this material is already included, and even that page is not the place to argue the toss as to whether the film is politically to your taste or not, but to explain what it is about. Also, oddly, you managed to dig up all the negative quotes from the Bradshaw Guardian review - which is actually pretty favourable overall. What a surprise.  N-HH   talk / edits  11:36, 28 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Not that I favour a star rating system, but Peter Brashaw gives it 3 out of five stars, so not an overwhelming endorsement. The passage already has an extensive quote from John Pilger himself, and Pilger is the most extensively quoted individual in the entire article, sometimes at a length which might normally be considered undue. If they did not consistently demonstrate Pilger's inflated ego, I would have reduced their length myself. The previously almost entirely unsourced section was not satisfactory, and the added quotes are brief. As they contain opinion, I could not have rendered them any other way, and the rest of the section is written from Pilger's viewpoint. Philip Cross (talk) 12:50, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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Merger Proposal
I do not feel a real need to have an underdeveloped article for the documentary Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia. Most of it is already written here (and the documentary itself is only a part of the Year Zero reports). Therefore I propose to merge the existing article about the documentary with the section here, it will not be of disruption for this article as most of the content is identical. What is your opinions? Giorgio69 (talk) 09:43, 13 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Against Year Zero is probably Pilger's best known documentary, and thus the most deserving of all of his documentaries to have its own article. In Template:John Pilger over a dozen of Pilger's other documentaries (out of about 60 in total) have their own Wikipedia articles, so it would look odd for the best known to have no article at all. However, in this biographical article, Year Zero has the most extensive resume. For reasons already explained, this situation is not entirely unreasonable, but some of the content here could be moved to the other article to beef it up. Philip Cross (talk) 10:10, 13 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree with your proposal of merging some of the content the other way around. Thanks for your input Giorgio69 (talk) 11:36, 15 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Merger discussion closed, performing the merger the other way around. Giorgio69 (talk) 07:08, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Oliver Kamm
IP user 82.0.141.87 has removed several references to the Times columnist, although his claim for 14 mentions is wrong. The article previously cited only two articles by Oliver Kamm, although one of them was cited five times. Pilger's longer standing critic, William Shawcross, is cited rather more than Kamm ever was.

The citations to Kamm's articles would indeed be unreasonable if more material by Pilger's other critics were readily available, but Pilger's highest profile was several decades ago and many pieces of praise and criticism were published long before the internet, and are not online. Until someone accesses this material, I believe Kamm's critical material should at least be restored. Sadly, Pilger's current work is somehow being almost totally ignored; his assertion that Donald Trump would be less dangerous as American President than Hilary Clinton has not dated very well at all. Philip Cross (talk) 19:58, 10 January 2018 (UTC)


 * No, the IP user is correct in the sense that the word "Kamm" occurs exactly 14 times in the wikitext of that version of the article. However, that total is slightly misleading, as it also occurs in refnames. To get a meaningful total we need to exclude the occurrences in defining refnames, as they simply duplicate the author name in the full citation. As Philip Cross says, there are two of these. That leaves 12 instances in which either the name "Kamm" appears, or a superscripted link is given to one of Kamm's citations. That is indeed excessive, even if one gives any credibility at all to Kamm. --NSH001 (talk) 22:25, 10 January 2018 (UTC)


 * It is rather better to use reliable sources, which I always do, than be motivated by personal dislike of a cited writer. That is the way to deal with bias in favour or against a subject which all editors ought to follow. Philip Cross (talk) 12:20, 11 January 2018 (UTC)