Michael Hastings, the fearless journalist whose reporting brought
down the career of General Stanley McChrystal, has died in a car
accident in Los Angeles, Rolling Stone has learned. He was 33.
Hastings' unvarnished 2010 profile of McChrystal in the pages of Rolling Stone, "The Runaway General,"
captured the then-supreme commander of the U.S.-led war effort in
Afghanistan openly mocking his civilian commanders in the White House.
The maelstrom sparked by its publication concluded with President Obama
recalling McChrystal to Washington and the general resigning his post.
"The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet
the standard that should be met by – set by a commanding general,"
Obama said, announcing McChrystal's departure. "It undermines the
civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic
system."
Hastings' hallmark as reporter was his refusal to cozy up to power.
While other embedded reporters were charmed by McChrystal's bad-boy
bravado and might have excused his insubordination as a joke, Hastings
was determined to expose the recklessness of a man leading what Hastings
believed to be a reckless war. "Runaway General" was a finalist for a
National Magazine Award, won the 2010 Polk award for magazine reporting, and was the basis for Hastings' book, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan.
For Hastings, there was no romance to America's misbegotten wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq. He had felt the horror of war first-hand: While
covering the Iraq war for Newsweek in early 2007, his
then-fianceé, an aide worker, was killed in a Baghdad car bombing.
Hastings memorialized that relationship in his first book, I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story.
A contributing editor to Rolling Stone, Hastings leaves behind a remarkable legacy of reporting, including an exposé of America's drone war, an exclusive interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at his hideout in the English countryside, an investigation into the Army's illicit use of "psychological operations" to influence sitting Senators and a profile of Taliban captive Bowe Bergdahl, "America's Last Prisoner of War."
"Great reporters exude a certain kind of electricity," says Rolling Stone
managing editor Will Dana, "the sense that there are stories burning
inside them, and that there's no higher calling or greater way to live
life than to be always relentlessly trying to find and tell those
stories. I'm sad that I'll never get to publish all the great stories
that he was going to write, and sad that he won't be stopping by my
office for any more short visits which would stretch for two or three
completely engrossing hours. He will be missed."
Hard-charging, unabashedly opinionated, Hastings was original and at
times abrasive. He had little patience for flacks and spinmeisters and
will be remembered for his enthusiastic breaches of the conventions of
access journalism. In a memorable exchange
with Hillary Clinton aide Philippe Reines in the aftermath of the
Benghazi attacks, Hastings' aggressive line of questioning angered
Reines. "Why do you bother to ask questions you've already decided you
know the answers to?" Reines asked. "Why don't you give answers that
aren't bullshit for a change?" Hastings replied.
In addition to his work as a contributing editor for Rolling Stone, Hastings also reported for BuzzFeed. He leaves behind his wife, the writer Elise Jordan.
Matt Farwell is a veteran of the Afghanistan war who worked as a
co-reporter with Hastings on some of his recent pieces. He sent this
eulogy to Rolling Stone: "My friend Michael Hastings died last
night in a car crash in Los Angeles. Writing this feels almost
ghoulish: I still haven't processed the fact that he's gone. Today we
all feel that loss: whether we're friends of Michael's, or family, or
colleagues or readers, the world has gotten a bit smaller. As a
journalist, he specialized in speaking truth to power and laying it all
out there. He was irascible in his reporting and sometimes/often/always
infuriating in his writing: he lit a bright lamp for those who wanted to
follow his example.
"Michael was no stranger to trying to make sense this kind of tragedy
nor was he unfamiliar the emptiness felt in the wake of a senseless,
random death. After all, he'd already learned about it the only way he
ever deemed acceptable for a non hack: first-hand. In the course of his
reporting he figured this lesson out again and again in Iraq,
Afghanistan and in the United States, and part of his passion stemmed
from a desire to make everyone else wake the fuck up and realize the
value of the life we're living.
"He did: He always sought out the hard stories, pushed for the truth,
let it all hang out on the page. Looking back on the past ten years is
tough for anyone, but looking back on Michael's past ten years and you
begin to understand how passionate and dedicated to this work he was, a
passion that was only equaled by his dedication to his family and
friends, and how much more he lived in thirty-three years than most
people live in a lifetime. That's part of what makes this all so tough:
exiting, he leaves us all with little more than questions and a blank
sheet of paper. Maybe that's challenge to continue to use it to write
the truth. I hope we can live up to that. He was a great friend and I
will miss him terribly."
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