Reporter Who Brought Down the ‘Runaway General’ Dead at 33

Michael Hastings is best known as the Rolling Stone contributor whose reporting ended the military career of Gen. Stanley McChrystal but more important, he was a fearless reporter who did not suffer bullshit answers. He died Tuesday at the age of 33 in a car crash.

Rolling Stone recalls the kind of intensity that made Hastings so good at his job:

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.

You can find Hastings’ work for Rolling Stone here and an archive of his BuzzFeed posts here.

— Posted by Peter Z. Scheer.