Regina – Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist Chris Hedges will speak in Regina this Thursday evening. Hedges is perhaps best known to Canadian audiences for being called a “nutbar” on air by CBC’s Kevin O’Leary, which resulted in hundreds of letters of complaint to the network and an apology from the show’s producer.

But this is just one incident in a long journalistic career that includes nearly two decades in Africa, Central America, the Balkans and the Middle East, where he served as bureau chief for the New York Times. Today Hedges is a best-selling author and highly popular columnist for truthdig.com.

“We invited him to Regina because his latest book on the dark side of unfettered profit-seeking – from theft of Indigenous lands to worker exploitation – contains an important message for citizens to hear right now, when we are living in a so-called ‘boom’ economy,” said Fiona Douglas, coordinator of the Social Policy Research Unit, which is organizing the lecture. “There is a lot to be learned from the U.S. experience.”

 Hedges’ talk, ‘Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt,’ will describe his journalistic journeys through the “sacrifice zones” of financial greed and deregulation – entire communities devastated by environmental degradation and rising impoverishment – and his first-hand observation of resistance movements like Occupy Wall Street.  

 The lecture is free of charge and will take place Thursday, Sept. 20 at 7:00 p.m. at the Education Auditorium, University of Regina.

 Co-sponsoring organizations are the School of Journalism, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Faculty of Arts, and the departments of Religious Studies, International Studies and Anthropology.