University of Lincoln to launch John Pilger digital archive

A new digital archive will preserve the work of world-renowned journalist John Pilger, the University of Lincoln announced this week.

The project, yet to be fully built, will develop a 'permanent, definitive public and scholarly digital archive of his work' said Ian Snowley, director of Library & Learning Resources at the University.

Pilger already has strong links with Lincoln: he is a vis­it­ing pro­fessor of journ­al­ism, was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Arts by Lincoln University last year, and helped launch the School of Journalism in Novem­ber 2004.

Using material already available through his website JohnPilger.com, which is to be redesigned and relaunched as part of the project, the archive will create a collection of his films, essays, written journalism and photographs, as an academic and journalistic resource.

"It's an enormous great acquisition," said Professor John Tulloch, head of the Lincoln School of Journalism. It will be 'all the work that we can assemble of one of the greatest journalists of the last part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century,' he said in an interview on the School's website.

Pilger is a 'man who is a formidable film-maker who has championed some of the most deprived and depressed groups,' Tulloch said. The university is pleased to have been chosen as the custodian of his work, Tulloch added.

Pilger's awards include International Reporter of the Year and the United Nations Association Peace Prize and Gold Medal. For his broadcasting, he has won France’s Reporter Sans Frontières award, an American Academy Award (Emmy) and a British Academy Award (BAFTA).

Pilger's career spans over 50 years: from famously reporting the Vietnam War in the 1970s, to his recent work on the expulsion of the Chagos islanders.

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