Michael Hastings, an acclaimed young journalist, has died in a car accident. The Vermont native was just 33 years old when he passed away Tuesday. He was widely known for a profile in Rolling Stone magazine, which reported his death, of a general who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan. “We are shocked and devastated by the news that Michael Hastings is gone ,” said Ben Smith, editor in chief of BuzzFeed, for whom he also wrote. “Michael was a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered.” “From wars to politics, he wrote stories that would otherwise have gone unwritten, and without him there are many great stories that will go untold.” “Michael was also a wonderful, generous colleague, a joy to work with and a lover of corgis … especially his Bobby Sneakers,” Smith continued. “Our thoughts are with Elise and the rest of his family.” Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana echoed those sentiments in comments in an obituary posted Tuesday evening on the magazine’s website: “Great reporters exude a certain kind of electricity, the sense that there are stories burning inside them,” Dana said of Hastings. “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.” “I’m 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.” His reporting on Gen. Stanley McChrystal in 2010 led to his resignation after he was quoted mocking President Obama, Vice President Biden and other officials. The story was titled “The Runaway General” and resulted from the considerable access to McChrystal and others that Michael Hastings was granted. “You never know how a story will be received,” he told the Burlington Free Press . “I knew the reporting was new and different, but I’m kind of surprised at the impact.”
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Michael Hastings Dies in Car Accident; Acclaimed Journalist Was 33
