His career trajectory illustrates beautifully how, for a few short years, maybe twenty years, twenty five, the state's control or supervision of the press slackened, to a degree not seen, probably, since the English Civil War, when censorship and government oversight over the printing presses fell apart in the years preceding the outbreak of the fighting.
Pilger, being an Australian, always seemed more outspoken than most English people in the media. This was because they reacted to and pushed back against the rigid class stratifications that charactrized British society, but were loosened because of WW2 and what's called, the 60's.
We won't see his kind again, or his impact, because the times have changed, alas.
A friend of mine used to work in 'Fleet Street' and the other day he mentioned that when he worked at the Times, so many of the people there came from public schools. There were a myriad of unwritten class rules. And of course, a rigid though hidden hierachy. Where would the British be without their hierachy? One petty 'class rule' was that one didn't speak to the 'help', the cleaners or the canteen staff, no 'fraternizing' with the enemy, I suppose. Those kind of rules always annoyed me and I usually went out of my way to piss all over them, and I'm not even an Australian!
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