By Michael Causey, Washington Independent Writers President (http://www.washwriter.org)
By fans he's been called "a cross between Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes." He's been called a lot worse by opponents. But muckraking journalist, author and TV reporter Greg Palast wouldn't have it any other way. His new book, ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War, is a recent New York Times bestseller. Palast swapped e-mails with WIW in early October to discuss a wide range of issues including why he had to leave the U.S. to get published and what motivates him to keep at it.
How hard has it been for you to get your work published given that much of it goes against the status quo and mainstream media?
I'm best known for uncovering how Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush knocked off tens of thousands of Black citizens off the voter rolls of Florida just before the 2000 election. They were supposedly felons, but their only crime was Voting While Black.
This expose, and the ones on the theft of 2004, on the Bush-Ladin connection, on Enron, on Hugo Chavez, on Iraq - these were all front page stories in the U.K., in Europe, in Latin America-here, NADA. Look it up: NPR has never mentioned the purge of Black "felons" in Florida; the [New York] Times didn't acknowledge that story for four years.
I wrote a story in TomPaine and in the London Observer titled, "Kerry Won." I was contacted by the New York Times Washington Bureau days after the election, after I'd written my report indicating massive fraud in the 2004 vote. The Times reporter had two questions for me:
1. Are you a sore loser? [and]
2. Are you a conspiracy nut?
He hadn't the least interest in my offer to provide him evidence of votes uncounted and a racist voter-challenge campaign by the GOP (a story I reported on BBC Television, with documentation). Instead, the Times ran a story the next day headlined, "INTERNET THEORIES OF BUSH LOSS, SPREAD BY BLOGS, EASILY DEBUNKED."
And that's all the news that's fit to print in the USA.
What would you advise aspiring investigative journalists to do today to find a platform for their work?
Leave the country. I mean it. And whatever you do, stay the f*** away from journalism schools. It's nearly impossible to go through training in press-release re-writing and come out sane and useful as a journalist OR a human being. Look at Bob Woodward.
You've had to fight censorship in your career. What advice do you give others facing censorship either from their publication...
Get ready to quit your job. Another reason not to go to journalism school. If you needed their [lousy] little paycheck, they own...your soul, your mind, [and] your story. If you volunteer to be a pet on a lease, don't be surprised when they feed you dog food.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
