Everyone has heard about The War on Terror. This month sees the launch in Bradford of The War on Democracy, a new film by maverick journalist John Pilger.

The film's title is intentionally ironic, suggesting that the film is about attacks on the West by terrorists. Instead it is an expose of US foreign policy's covert war against democratically-elected governments that are critical of the United States.

Bill Lawrence, head of cinema at the National Media Museum, said: "I saw it at Cannes, it's very entertaining. It reinforces one's beliefs and irritates people who don't share those beliefs.

"It is not a personal essay in the way that Michael Moore's films are. The War on Democracy is a fact-based documentary."

Pilger has been getting under the skin of the political establishment as well as the Independent Broadcasting Authority for many years.

What was at issue very often was indeed the subjective, personal nature of Pilger's reporting. This is acknowledged by Anthony Hayward, whose book about Pilger's reporting - In the Name of Justice: The Television Reporting of John Pilger - is published by Bloomsbury.

"Pilger has never accepted television's notions of objectivity', impartiality' and balance', which he believed did nothing to tell the truth of a story but simply confused the viewer.

"The result was a string of run-ins with the commercial television regulator until the new era of deregulation in the mid-1990s that coincided, ironically, with the beginnings of docu-soap and a reduced commitment to serious' documentaries by ITV," he said.

Anthony Hayward said if Pilger's critics don't like his conclusions, they rarely challenge his research, which is painstaking. They smear him instead. In return Pilger does himself no favours by constantly highlighting the media's own shortcomings.

It is against this backdrop of internal television politics that The War on Democracy perhaps should be seen. Hayward said that latterly Pilger has benefited from Granada Television's resources being boosted significantly by Michale Watt, a millionaire New Zealander and left-wing philanthropist who co-produced the Queen stage musical, We Will Rock You.

The main thrust of The War on Democracy focuses on Latin America.

Hayward said: "Former CIA officers discuss the dirty tricks that took place in Chile and other countries while the organisation's former head of operations, Duane Clarridge, tells Pilger in a gung-ho interview that borders on the comical: We'll intervene wherever we decide that it's in our national security interests and if you don't like it, lump it' "Although Pilger's target is what he sees as the United States's hypocrisy, the emphasis of his documentary is on the quest to recover democracy in countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia. Like much of his work, it is filled with hope, mainly as the result of the actions of ordinary people.

"In Venezuela, he goes against the grain by praising the social reforms of the president, Hugo Chavez, pointing out that he has used the oil bonanza there to finance education and health care, thus liberating the poor."

Bill Lawrence said one of the most moving sections of the film showed an 80-year-old Venezuelan man who was learning to read for the first time.

Unsurprisingly President Chavez, an outspoken critic of US foreign policy, allowed Pilger to travel across the country with him, in the course of which he gave the journalist a rare interview.

In May President Chavez was accused of eroding freedom of speech by withdrawing Caracas Television's broadcasting licence. In his defence he replied that many more private, non-state-owned television channels still exist.

Pilger also reports on the new social movement spreading across South America that has caused change in Bolivia, "where the people have elected their first indigenous president and multi-national corporations have been expelled since the days when the country's resources - even water - were sold off.

"Pilger contrasts this with Chile, which he deems not to be the prosperous, model' democracy that it has been dubbed by the United States," Anthony Hayward said.

  • The War on Democracy runs at the National Media Museum from August 24 to 30 at various times afternoon and evening. The box office number is 0870 7010200.