John Pilger on NUJ and Make Poverty History

The National Union of Journalists and the Blair government are planning a "launch" ceremony, at which they will announce their "partnership". According to John Fray, the NUJ's deputy general secretary, this collaboration will "promote awareness among journalists of the issues that surround the struggle against poverty on a world scale . . . We want to help the media to tell it like it is."

In a glossy letter to NUJ members, Fray says that joining hands with the government is "enhancing the understanding of the need for a positive approach to international development amongst those who report and comment on the issues". For this "positive approach", the government is paying the journalists' union £80,000. What a bargain price for the principle of independence from power.

A "partnership" with the NUJ is a master stroke for a rapacious British government whose "aid" and "debt relief" are intended to mask, as Gordon Brown put it, an "obligation" on the poorest countries to "create the conditions for [business] investment" . The chief civil servant at the Department for International Development wrote, "We are extending our support for privatisation in the poorest countries from the power sector in India to the tea industry in Nepal."

Since when did privatisation have anything to do with "the struggle against poverty"? Privatisation is about control of markets and profit. Period.

John Pilger castigates his own trade union
By accepting money from the British government, the National Union of Journalists is undermining its own independence and credibility. By John Pilger, New Statesman

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