As a young reporter in his 20s, he was on the ground exposing the difficult truths of the Vietnam War. After the fall of Pol Pot, Pilger revealed the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge in a television film – Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia – that had a massive worldwide impact and became one of the most watched documentaries ever made. And in 1968, Pilger was in the room in Los Angeles when the then presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.
For one month in 1995, the widely respected journalist and filmmaker shared these remarkable experiences and more with Deakin University students and staff in a special series of lectures and events. Pilger had been invited to Deakin as the Edward Wilson Fellow and was accompanied by his partner, the journalist and editor Jane Hill.
‘In Britain, John was lucky enough to be awarded quite a number of honorary degrees,’ Hill explains.
By the time of his fellowship at Deakin, Pilger had won multiple British Press Awards. He had also received a BAFTA Award, a Peabody Award and an International Emmy for his trailblazing documentaries exposing the political and humanitarian aftermath of the genocide in Cambodia. His public lecture at the Geelong Performing Arts Centre in 1995 attracted 700 people.
‘We were received so warmly by the staff and the students there,’ Hill recalls.
‘John made a big keynote speech and there were lots of seminars and smaller groups where John interacted with students and sort of mentored people and chatted and did a bit of informal teaching.’
The experience stayed with Pilger, who generously left a gift in his Will through Deakin to encourage the next generation of investigative journalists. In Pilger’s own words, the scholarship is 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.’
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, a prolific author and documentary filmmaker, grew up in Bondi and landed his first job in journalism straight from high school. Working as a ‘copy boy’ at the Sydney edition of The Sun he then moved to the Sydney Daily Telegraph at the age of 18, having won a cadetship. Pilger had already built a name for himself at The Daily Mirror in London when the opportunity arose to front his first documentary, based on his scoop from Vietnam that US soldiers were openly rebelling their orders. The Quiet Mutiny was released in 1970.
‘He was always pitching up ideas to his print editors, to television companies, and commissioners,’ Hill says.
‘He didn’t always get the green light for things, but he worked so hard at persuasion. I’ve seen him work all the way through the night putting a proposal together or backing up all his arguments with absolute concrete fact and multiple sources. He was meticulous in fact-checking and looking at the reasons why a story had to be told and trying to win over those in a position to enable him to tell it.’
During his long career, Pilger regularly travelled to conflict zones to file stories and produce documentaries, in spite of the dangers.
‘He and his director often had to go to authoritarian countries incognito, for example, in Burma and East Timor they went in as travel consultants. They had to film with a camera in a canvas bag with a small hole for the lens because journalists had previously been targeted and killed, such as in Balibo in Timor,’ Hill shares.
‘He went to Bikini Atoll for his film, The Coming War on China, to look at the history of nuclear explosions in the Pacific and the dangers of nuclear war. His shoes registered as dangerous on the Geiger counter because of all the radiation still there.
‘I was very concerned for him. He never took foolish risks, but he was a courageous person.’
Hill treasures the trusted Hermes ‘Baby’ typewriter that accompanied Pilger on many of his difficult assignments – its battered metal case evidence of a lifetime of use.
‘It rode on his coffin at his funeral, and it’s now in my bedroom. I do one day hope to put an exhibition together because I have, as you can imagine, so many things – memorabilia and photographs and objects and notebooks – from his many decades of working. It’s a waste not to share them with people.’
Certain aspects of becoming a journalist have changed considerably since Pilger got his start in the newsrooms of Sydney. One thing that has not changed is that unpaid internships remain an essential stepping stone for many journalism students.
‘Some students might not be able to take an internship in a rural or regional area like Shepparton or Mildura or Bairnsdale because they can’t afford the travel and the accommodation to do so. This scholarship will enable them to do that,’ says Dr Alison McAdam (PhD ‘24), a Senior Lecturer in Communication at Deakin.
‘Other students might live outside of Melbourne, but want to complete an internship at the ABC on a program like News Breakfast that might start at 4am or 5am. The scholarship will allow them to stay in the city instead of trying to commute at 3am on public transport.’
Pilger understood that each generation must be given the tools, time and independence to pursue truth in the public interest. Today’s emerging journalists enter a media environment shaped by speed, algorithms and opinion-driven echo chambers, where careful investigation and uncomfortable facts can be crowded out by noise.
Sam Pilger says his father would be pleased to see the scholarship offered for the first time in 2026.
‘His gift to Deakin was important to him and he hoped in some small way to inspire future generations of journalists. He left Australia in the early 1960s and based himself in London, where I was born, as he reported on the world, but it always drew him back. He loved the big skies, the light and the ability to swim from his adored Sydney beaches.’
There is something powerful in knowing that, even after you’re gone, the causes you fought for and believed in can continue to make a difference. Learn more about leaving a gift in your Will through Deakin.
Read more stories from the 2025 Deakin Difference donor impact report