Michael Hastings

Michael Mahon Hastings (January 28, 1980 – June 18, 2013) was an American journalist, author, contributing editor to Rolling Stone, and reporter for BuzzFeed.

He was raised in New York, Canada, and Vermont, and he attended New York University.

He played lacrosse and soccer, and performed in the school's plays before graduating in 1998.

After graduating, Hastings wrote for Scholastic, an educational magazine for young adults.

Hastings rose to prominence with his coverage of the Iraq War for Newsweek in the 2000s.

He attended Connecticut College before earning his Bachelor of Arts in journalism from New York University in 2002.

Hastings began his journalism career as an unpaid intern for Newsweek magazine in 2002, and he was also a regular contributor to Gentlemen's Quarterly and a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine.

In 2005, Hastings began covering the Iraq War while living in NATO-occupied Green Zones in Baghdad.

Hastings suffered the loss of his fiancée Andrea Parhamovich in 2007.

A former spokeswoman for Air America, Parhamovich moved to Baghdad and began working for the National Democratic Institute.

She died after her convoy was ambushed by gunmen, killing Parhamovich and her three security guards.

Hastings wrote a book on the incident, titled I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story.

Shortly before its publication, Newsweek published an excerpt of the book, in which Hastings recounts the day Parhamovich died.

The New York Times gave the book a mixed review.

After his fiancée Andrea Parhamovich was killed in an ambush, Hastings wrote his first book, I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story (2008), a memoir about his relationship with Parhamovich and the insurgency that took her life.

Jordan was a speechwriter for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from 2008 to 2009.

He received the George Polk Award for "The Runaway General" (2010), a Rolling Stone profile of General Stanley McChrystal, commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in the Afghanistan war.

The article documented the widespread contempt for civilian government officials exhibited by the general and his staff and ultimately resulted in McChrystal's resignation.

In June 2010, Rolling Stone published "The Runaway General", Hastings's profile of U.S. Army general Stanley McChrystal, then commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in the Afghanistan war.

The article reported remarks by McChrystal's staff that were overtly critical and contemptuous of White House staff and other civilian officials.

On June 22, news of the forthcoming article reached the attention of the American print media and the White House.

McChrystal immediately issued an extensive apology, and Duncan Boothby, the civilian contractor responsible for coordinating the article with Hastings, resigned.

U.S. President Barack Obama summoned McChrystal to the White House on June 23, and relieved him of command.

Hastings offered his views on relations between McChrystal and the Obama administration.

Hastings was originally meant to have controlled contact, which expanded when he had to catch a bus to Berlin with the general and his entourage after international flights were grounded, because of the air travel disruptions caused by the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull, which gave him sufficient time to pick up less discreet remarks.

Hastings married journalist Elise Jordan in May 2011 in Holly Springs, Mississippi.

Hastings followed up with The Operators (2012), a detailed account of his monthlong stay with McChrystal in Europe and Afghanistan.

Hastings became a vocal critic of the Obama administration, Democratic Party, and surveillance state during the 2013 Department of Justice investigations of reporters, referring to restrictions of freedom of the press as a "war" on journalism.

His last story, "Why Democrats Love to Spy On Americans", was published by BuzzFeed on June 7, 2013.

Hastings died in an automobile crash on June 18, 2013, in Los Angeles, California.

The toxicology report showed evidence of THC (level 12 ng/ml) and methamphetamine positivity (reference LA coroner toxicology report # 2013-04353).

Blue Rider Press published his only novel, The Last Magazine (2014), a year after his death.

Born in Malone, New York, Michael was the son of Molly (née Mahon) and Brent Hastings.

Hastings had two brothers, Jon and Jeff.

Hastings lived in Malone until he was 11 years old.

His family then moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where his mother was trained in the field of pediatric ophthalmology at McGill University.

He attended Lower Canada College, a private preparatory high school in Montreal, where he wrote a column for the school's paper.

When he was 16, his family relocated to Vermont.

He attended Rice Memorial High School, a Roman Catholic secondary school in South Burlington, Vermont.

In high school Hastings was elected as class president, where he ran on an "anti-administration platform".