Muckraking journalist Greg Palast has built his reputation by taking on Big Stories (the 2000 Presidential election, the Iraq war) and digging up juicy details the mainstream media ignores. He's a modern-day Mike Wallace in a cheesy hat, known for causing a Jeb Bush lackey to bolt from the room while on camera by presenting him with evidence of official chicanery in the 2000 elections. Official documents have a way of falling into Palast's hands, often provided by ordinary citizens alarmed by what they see behind the closed doors of government and corporate America. Unlike Wallace, Palast's work doesn't play on 60 Minutes. American news organizations don't often carry his reports, so he works from London for The Guardian newspaper and BBC-TV's Newsnight. Back home in the States, Palast is on a speaking tour hawking his latest compendium, Armed Madhouse. This week, he visits UT's Fletcher Lounge, and if you're lucky, he might talk about the Navy's plan to shoot Marines via torpedo onto Iraqi beaches from billion-dollar subs. No, really. Sat., June 24, 7 p.m., University of Tampa, 401 W. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa, $10 in advance/$12 at the door, www.wmnf.org.
This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2006.
