Don Pierson and offshore broadcasting
Right: The man who turned the BBC upside down from the outside: Don Pierson of Eastland, Texas is shown with his radio ship MV Galaxy. This motor vessel was the home of 'Wonderful Radio London' between December 1964 and August 1967 which broadcast from anchorage off the coast of south east England. Both Gilder and Hagger came to know Pierson who contributed his own broadcasting archives to them. Hagger made an exclusive and unique recorded interview with Pierson about his offshore broadcasting stations which also included: 'Swinging Radio England' and 'Britain Radio'. For more informaton about Don Pierson use reference link (right).
It was Pierson who shook the BBC to its foundations in the nineteen-sixties and thus the BBC was ordered by the British government of the day to reshuffle its own broadcasting stations and formats in order to compete for listeners. Pierson's effect upon British media and British media law and copyright law led to Hagger making his first contact with Pierson in 1966.
In 1985 these same issues that had been inspired by Pierson concerning freedom of speech and its different interpretations under the licensing and copyright laws of both the United States and the United Kingdom, led to the early formation of what was to become the John Lilburne Research Institue (for Constitutional Studies).
John Lilburne and school textbooks
Just prior to this same period of time in 1982, Gilder's university thesis concerning the development of European 'pirate' radio and television stations was also published.While researching material for a broadcasting script during 1985, Hagger stumbled across a major article by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black that traced the origins of the U.S. Constitution incorporating its Bill of Rights, to the prototype written constitution drafted by Freeborn John Lilburne during the Seventeenth Century. From 1949 onwards Justice Black referenced Lilburne in many of his judicial written Opinions and influenced his colleagues on the bench to follow suit.
In January 1992 all of these developments were chronicled by Hagger in a full page tabloid article that was published in conjunction with the Intranet service of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. This article brought together the intertwining of these studies (albeit written as a non-fiction chronicle under the framework of a human interest story), with the title: Who is John Lilburne? Textbooks don't tell us.
In addition to written works published after 1985, a number of broadcasts for both radio and television have also been produced and aired by Gilder, Hagger and associates concerning this same theme of publishing, broadcasting and the copyright laws while taking inspiration from John Lilburne. In an earlier age when both publications and printing presses were licensed by the government, it was Lilburne, at first acting on behalf of a proto-'pirate' publisher and later in his own name, who repeatedly challenged the media licensing laws of his day. Lilburne created landmark case law that was later referenced by Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court in their own written works.
Publishing history
Right: The cover of Mass Media Moments, first published in 2003 by Eric Gilder. This work contains the chapter 'London: My Hometown' which was first published separately as an academic article in 2001, and then incorporated in book format. 'London: My Hometown' is the first published history of the 1964-1967 British offshore
commercial radio station 'Wonderful Radio London', as told in an exclusive recorded interview with Don
Pierson, its Texas creator. This account has since been incorporated in other publications by Gilder in collaboration with Mervyn Hagger.
Since the first appearance of 'London My Hometown' in 2001, Gilder and Hagger have collaborated upon a new series of related works following this same theme, and which all make reference to the John Lilburne Research Institute (for Constitutional Studies).