BBC journalist wears many hats: investigator, critic, author, speaker.

Byline: TIM CHRISTIE The Register-Guard

The gray fedora is the first clue that Greg Palast considers himself as much a gumshoe as he does a reporter.

The American-born investigative reporter wears the fedora on his assignments for the BBC, and he pursues his stories so doggedly that one admirer, liberal commentator Jim Hightower, calls him "a cross between Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes."

His specialty is exposing misdeeds and venality among the rich, powerful and politically connected.

His hard-hitting stories and no-holds-barred reporting techniques have earned him numerous journalism awards, plaudits from alternative and left-wing news outlets - and the everlasting ire of his targets.

Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris called him "twisted and maniacal" in a letter to Harper's magazine. The World Trade Organization - a favorite Palast target - called his reports "rubbish, rubbish, rubbish." After he went undercover to expose influence peddling in the British government, The Daily Mirror, a London tabloid, ran his picture on the front page under this headline: "The Liar! Sleaze Reporter!"

Now Palast is selling a book, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," a collection of his work from the BBC and the Observer and Guardian newspapers in London. He'll be in Eugene today for a round of media interviews, a book-signing at Tsunami Books, and an appearance at the McDonald Theater.

The book's subtitle - "An Investigative Reporter Exposes the Truth about Globalization, Corporate Cons and High Finance Fraudsters" - tells you where Palast is coming from. He said his only agenda is to advocate for the truth, but the 49-year-old Los Angeles native confesses he does have a bone to pick with the rich and powerful.

"I grew up lower working class, on the edge of poor," he said from a stop on his book tour in Sonoma, Calif. "I do have a complete if not rabid dislike of privilege and its abuse. I don't care if that's Daddy Bush helping Sonny Boy get elected, I don't like that stuff. It drives me to distraction, and I like to expose it."

He rejects what he calls the "pretense of objectivity" in U.S. mainstream news outlets and expresses contempt for the state of American journalism.

He's still stunned that his expose of how Florida election officials improperly purged voter rolls before the 2000 election, which aired on BBC's nightly newscast, met with deafening silence from major American news outlets.

He reported that a Texas company hired by Florida election officials purged 64,000 voters from voter lists because of alleged felony convictions. But most of these voters weren't felons - and more than half were black, and most of the others were Democratic voters. George W. Bush ultimately won Florida, and thus the White House, by 537 votes.

Only after the U.S. Civil Rights Commission confirmed his findings did The Washington Post run the story, he said.

In a column, he called the American press "docile sheep, the editors and reporters snoozy and content with munching on, digesting, then printing a diet of press releases and canned stories provided by officials and corporate public relations operations."

For example, he said, "60 Minutes," the vaunted CBS news magazine, went after Enron only after it had gone bankrupt.

"Their idea of investigative reporting is to come out of the hills and shoot the wounded," he said.

He blames newsroom leaders for lacking the backbone and commitment to get investigative stories into newspapers and onto broadcasts.

"There's no lack of investigative reporters in the United States," he said. "I run into guys who would love to do these stories. What we miss in America are investigative editors and investigative television news producers. We're missing the Ben Bradlees and Edward R. Murrows, willing to put up the money and time and take the risk."

Palast said his background as an investigator gives him a big advantage over most reporters. He has a graduate degree in international finance and accounting from the University of Chicago, and worked as an investigator for government agencies and labor unions before becoming a reporter. He loves poring over complex accounting documents.

"I have a background as an investigator," he said. "Most investigative reporters have backgrounds as reporters and try to become investigators," but they can't shed the "sloppy shortcuts" they learned beating daily deadlines.

He relishes putting the powerful on the spot with questions like this one he posed to Florida's elections chief Clayton Roberts about the company he hired to purge voter rolls.

"Wait, let me show you this contract if I could," Palast said as Roberts yanked off his lapel microphone and stormed out of the interview. "It could look to other people, don't you think, that you paid $4 million to purchase this election for the Republican Party?"

When Roberts summoned a state trooper to escort Palast from his office, the reporter mused, "I don't know why he had to call the police; we hadn't gotten to our difficult questions yet."

GREG PALAST TO SPEAK

Greg Palast, an investigative reporter for the BBC, will be in Eugene today to promote his book, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy."

He's scheduled to be on KVAL-TV's noon newscast; on KLCC-FM's `Northwest Passage' at 4 p.m.; and to sign books at Tsunami Books, 2585 Willamette St., at 6 p.m.

Palast will speak at the McDonald Theater at 7:30 p.m.; doors open at 7. Tickets, $8 for general admission and $6 for seniors and students, are available at Tsunami Books and through Fastixx.

For more information on Palast, visit his Web site, www.gregpalast.com.