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Greg Palast

Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow

Greg Palast has been called the "most important investigative reporter of our time," by Tribune Magazine in Britain—where his first reports appeared on BBC television and in the Guardian newspapers—and "doggedly independent, undaunted by power. His stories bite, they're so relevant they threaten to alter history," by The Chicago Tribune.

Palast is best known in his native USA as the journalist who, for the Observer (UK), broke the story of how Jeb Bush purged thousands of Black Florida citizens from voter rolls before the 2000 election, thereby handing the White House to his brother George. His reports on the theft of election 2004, the spike in the FBI investigations of the bin Ladens before September 11, the secret State Department documents planning the seizure of Iraq's oil fields have won him a record six mentions in Project Censored.

Palast, who has led investigations for government on three continents, is also the author of Democracy and Regulation, a seminal treatise on energy corporations and government control commissioned by the United Nations based on his lectures at Cambridge University and the University of Sao Paulo.

Beginning in the 1970s, having earned his degree in finance studying under Milton Friedman and free-trade luminaries, Palast went on to challenge their vision of a New Global Order, working for the United Steelworkers of America, the Enron workers' coalition in Latin America and consumer and environmental groups worldwide. As an investigator for the Chugach Natives of Alaska, he uncovered the oil company frauds which led to the grounding of the Exxon Valdez. His racketeering probe of a nuclear plant operator led to one of the largest jury judgments in U.S. history.

In 1998 Palast went undercover for Britain's Observer, worked his way inside the prime minister's inner circle and busted open Tony Blair's biggest scandal, Lobbygate, chosen by Palast's press colleagues in the UK as Story of the Year. The inside information he obtained on Rev. Pat Robertson won him a nomination as Britain's top business journalist. He is also Guerrilla News Network's Guerrilla of the Year.

Palast is Patron of the Trinity College Philosophical Society, an honor previously held by Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde. His writings have won him the Financial Times David Thomas Prize—and inspired the Eminem video Mosh. Greg Palast, says Noam Chomsky, "Upsets all the right people."

Palast won the George Orwell Courage in Journalism Award for his BBC documentary, Bush Family Fortunes.

Selected Articles and Appearances:

Block the Vote
Article | Rolling Stone | October 30, 2008'

Steal Back Your Vote Video
Video | Rolling Stone | October 30, 2008

The House I Live In
Op-Ed | MWC News | July 4, 2008

$300 Mllion from Chavez to FARC a Fake
Op-Ed | OurFuture.org | March 7, 2008

Exxon suxx. McCain duxx.
Op-Ed | OpEdNews.com | February 28, 2008

Greg Palast on the Exxon Valdez court case on Air America Alaska
Radio Appearance | Air America Alaska | February 11, 2008

One Bush Left Behind
Op-Ed | GregPalast.com | January 29, 2008

Big Easy to Big Empty
Video | GregPalast.com | January 29, 2008

Amazon natives sue oil giant
Article | BBC Newsnight | November 27, 2007

Book Reviews:

Book Review
Armed Madhouse | BookReview.com | February 13, 2008

Don't become a victim of voter fraud in 2008
Armed Madhouse | Crooks and Liars | September 13, 3007

WEBSITE: gregpalast.com

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Salvation Boulevard

A novel

By Larry Beinhart

From the Edgar Award-winning novelist and author of Wag the Dog and The Librarian comes a new mystery novel about a private investigator and a case that tests his courage, character and soul. The victim is an atheist professor, the main suspect—who has confessed and is in custody—a Muslim foreign student, the defense attorney a Jew and the detective a born-again Christian. The New York Times says of Beinhart, "The man can really write."

Read glowing reviews of the book in the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Diego Union Tribune. More


Clive Stafford Smith on PBS Documentary

October 16 - November 20 | PBS Affiliates
Watch Nation Books author Clive Stafford Smith in a new PBS documentary, Torturing Democracy. Stafford Smith is the author of Eight o' Clock Ferry to the Windward Side and founder of the legal charity, Reprieve, whose clients include prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

November 23 | 10 am
Amy Alexander at Watergate Conference
(Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.)
Listen to Institute Fellow Amy Alexander talk with fellow panelists about how bloggers are changing politics. This event is part of the National Association of Black Journalists' Watergate Conference on Political and Congressional Reporting: Did Politics Change the Media or Did Media Change Politics? MORE

December 7 | 4 pm
Gary Younge Pays Tribute to Studs Terkel
(Great Hall, Cooper Union, NYC)
Institute Fellow Gary Younge will be one of the luminaries paying tribute to the life of legendary oral historian and activist Studs Terkel, who died on October 31 at the age of 96. The event will be open to the public and free of charge. MORE

December 8
The Nation Institute Annual Dinner Gala
(Metropolitan Pavilion, NYC)
The Nation Institute's Annual Gala Dinner is Monday, December 8 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York. Special guests include Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood; comedian Lewis Black; and Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor and Publisher of The Nation. MORE

January 15 | 8:30 am
Deepa Fernandes Wins North Star News Prize
(4 Times Square, NYC)
Institute Fellow Deepa Fernandes is one of three winners of the North Star News Prize, which recognizes people of color who have made outstanding contributions to journalism, media and communications, and public understanding of the struggle for social justice. MORE


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