By Sarah Lagan
NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear has hit back at investigative
journalist John Pilger, who slammed the union for taking a grant from
the Government’s Department for International Development.
The three-year grant is to help the NUJ produce educational material
to promote understanding of international poverty and to create a “more
ethical” media on the subject.
But Pilger has accused the
union of compromising its independence by “crawling into bed with a
Government which stands accused of prima facie war crimes for its
illegal invasion of a defenceless country”.
Related
In a letter to The
Journalist, he accused the DFID of being a vehicle of Blair’s “extreme
ideology: neo-liberalism (imperialism)”.
But Dear said: “John Pilger’s attack on the NUJ is misplaced and inaccurate.
The NUJ has never, nor will it ever, compromise its independence.
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“We
accept project funding where there are no strings attached. Our latest
project is to inform and influence international policies on free
media/freedom of expression.”
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