'Slow news' is maritime workers around the world striking in solidarity with the Liverpool dockers fighting against the sacking of union members and their replacement by casual non-union labour. It is dedicated to what Pilger calls the 'slow news' of journalism.

The myth creates a self-perpetuating and debilitating cycle of severely limited news coverage: the readers do not want to know, therefore the journalists will not report, and consequently the readers are not only ignorant but believe that that is what they want to be. Related to this is Pilger's important dispelling of the myth that the public has been 'desensitised' to the violence and hardship confronting communities such as those in Myanmar and Cambodia and even the indigenous Australians. The reason for this, Pilger argues, can ultimately be found in the profits that the likes of Rupert Murdoch reap from building and maintaining public ignorance of affairs in which they have a vested interest. Here, Pilger draws on his own experience as a young journalist working in London on the Daily Mirror and uses it to explain why news and information in this 'information age' are so limited and censored - why books like Hidden Agendas might come as a shock to many who consider themselves well versed in world current affairs. For this reason, Hidden Agendas belongs to what Pilger sees as the dying or dead arena of investigative journalism.Ī large section of the book is dedicated to 'The Rise and Fall of Popular Journalism'. Pilger not only conveys the political and social predicaments of the exploited and censored, but also places these people and their struggles in the context of the agendas of the powerful and profit-hungry that impact upon millions of unseen and little-considered lives of ordinary people. Hidden Agendas takes the reader behind the political facades of Myanmar, Indonesia and East Timor, England's 'New Labour' and Thatcher's Britain, Australia's perceived identity, Cambodia, the arms trade, the world media, the 'globalised' economy and the 'new' South Africa under Nelson Mandela. John Pilger has dedicated his life's work to these strugglers, and his latest book continues in the powerful tradition of books like A Secret Country, reporting and analysing events and battles that are still being fought out. Hidden Agendas is a tribute to some of the strugglers against oppression, violence, greed and imperialism.

In an age of escalating social problems, few are even properly acknowledged.

Hidden Agendas by John Pilger