July 19, 2006

Greg Palast is scrappy, intrepid, and indefatigable when he scents a scandal that needs to be uncovered. And as a result of these admirable characteristics in a journalist, he is unemployable by a news company in America.

That is why he works for the BBC and London-based newspapers.

In America today, you generally get in "career trouble" if you are a journalist and you reveal secrets about the Bush Administration. But that doesn't stop Palast, even if his paycheck has to come from abroad.

Palast, a BuzzFlash favorite, was the first reporter to expose the vast scale of the manipulation of the Florida presidential vote in 2000 -- and he hasn't stopped unearthing the details of how democracy is being undermined since then.

With his trademark fedora, Palast is a journalistic combination of Sam Spade and Joe Friday. He wants nothing but the facts -- and he won't be stopped until he's gotten to the bottom of a cover-up.

Palast follows the muckraking dictum long-forgotten by the affluent media moguls and "star" celebrity "reporters" in the U.S.: to afflict the comfortable, and to comfort the afflicted.

Except, in this case, his mission is to save democracy by exposing those persons who would steal it from us.

Greg Palast, ninja investigative reporter, you are this week's BuzzFlash "Wings of Justice Award" winner. May you never stop pursuing the truth.

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Nominated by: Robert Muschlitz of Micanopy, Florida

 

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