MSN: Award-winning journalist Michael Hastings dies

[visionary]

http://news.msn.com/obits/award-winning-journalist-michael-hastings-dies?ocid=ansnews11

Award-winning journalist Michael Hastings dies

 

Award-winning journalist and war correspondent Michael Hastings, whose unflinching reporting ended the career of a top American army general, died early Tuesday in a car accident in Los Angeles, his employer and family said.

 

Hastings, who was 33, was described by many of his colleagues as an unfailingly bright and hard-charging reporter who wrote stories that mattered. Most recently, he wrote about politics for the news website BuzzFeed, where the top editor said colleagues were devastated by the loss.

 

"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 politicians," said Ben Smith, BuzzFeed's editor-in-chief.

 

 

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2013/06/michael_hastings_cia_coverage_crash_fire.php?ref=trending

Michael Hastings Probed the CIA Before Fatal Hollywood Crash

 

Michael Hastings, the Buzzfeed writer who appeared to have died in a fiery Hollywood crash early today, had reported extensively on the CIA and was rumored to be continuing work on that beat at the time of his demise.

 

Apparently he also told Wikileaks that he was being investigated by the FBI.

There's already some conspiracy theories starting.

[skinsmarydu]

Sorry, didn't see this thread, but it crossed my mind as well when I read about the FBI investigation.

I said, "What kind of accident? Collision? Car blow up? What was it?"

They've covered his body of work fairly well so far in the media, but I haven't heard what caused the accident.

 

Just curious.

[Toe Jam]

Email Sent by Michael Hastings Hours Before His Death Mentions ‘Big Story’ and a Need to ‘Go Off the Radar’

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/21/email-sent-by-michael-hastings-hours-before-his-death-mentions-a-big-story-and-a-need-to-go-off-the-radar/

What a coincidence.

 

[skinsmarydu]

Wow...thanks Toe Jam. 

Looks awful.  Prayers to his loved ones. 

 

I've read & watched him...imho, he did this country a great service.  He reported the truth.  No matter how bad it was, or who it was gonna piss off.  Now we have to pray that his colleagues do the same in his honor & find the truth in his death. 

 

RIP, Michael.

[#98QBKiller]

Wow...thanks Toe Jam. 

Looks awful.  Prayers to his loved ones. 

 

I've read & watched him...imho, he did this country a great service.  He reported the truth.  No matter how bad it was, or who it was gonna piss off.  Now we have to pray that his colleagues do the same in his honor & find the truth in his death. 

 

RIP, Michael.

 

Definitely agree.

 

Here's the e-mail pic embedded:

 

 

This, then he dies in a fiery, single-car accident. All at a time when the country is being caught doing a lot of shady ****. 

[Toe Jam]

Something stinks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O__VgJKB59I

[skinsmarydu]

Thanks Toe Jam.  It certainly does. 

I especially love the sign on the tree that says "This was NOT an accident".  I gotta get ready for work, will catch Young Turks commentary later.  I love Cenk.

[CurseReversed]

Sad story.  Definitely suspect. 

 

If only he knew that it was impossible to go off the radar nowadays.

[Destino]

I watched the video and the woman doesn't make sense.  

 

1 - She says the fire was too hot.  Doesn't really offer any data or evidence.  Too hot compared to what?  Is she saying that some sort of flammable substances were present?  She just kind of throws it out there and walks away whistling.  

 

2 - She says that it makes no sense that the engine and drive train were behind the car in relation to which way the car was traveling when it hit a tree.  She says some physics professors told her that the engine should have gone the opposite way.  She then says that Mercedes told her that their cars don't explode.  Heh.  

 

Then when asked what she thinks happened she says there were no skid marks and that he might have been drunk driving.  But wait... how could drunk driving explain a fire that's too hot and an engine that flew the wrong way?  Did he leave the bar with crates of hot burning exploding booze that went off when he drunkenly hit a tree?  She also mentions that someone can control a vehicle with an ipad, presumably allowing the hacker to hit the cars "hell fire" and "engine eject" buttons remotely.    

[WakkaWakka]

http://www.sandiego6.com/story/hastings-investigation-20130714

**This is starting to stink:

"Hastings’ friend and confidant SSgt. Joe Biggs disclosed a macabre twist in the award-winning journalist’s death in a suspicious single-car accident. According to SSgt. Biggs, “Michael Hastings’ body was returned to Vermont in an urn.” He further alleged, “Family members did not want Michael’s body cremated.”"

**According to Hastings, he has been threatened before (I'm sure that anyone following the case knows about this claim):

"As an investigative journalist, Hastings saw his fair share of threats. One particular passage in Hastings book, “The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan,” revealed that a former McChrystal staff member made a death threat. “We'll hunt you down and kill you if we don't like what you write,” the unnamed staffer said. Hastings coolly retorted: “Well, I get death threats like that about once a year, so no worries.”

**What's going on here?

"Despite the LAPD's categorization of the Hasting fatal accident as a "no (evidence of) foul play,” LAPD continues to ignore FOIA (CPRA in Calif.) requests made by San Diego 6 News for the police report, 9/11 call, autopsy, bomb squad and toxicology reports, or make the Mercedes available for inspection which only fuels conjecture."

**I'm surprised this isn't a bigger story. C'mon media, he was one of you!

[WakkaWakka]

Here is the best article I've seen thus far relating to this case. Very surprised it's not garnering more attention.

 

http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/07/14/the-michael-hastings-wreck-video-evidence-offers-a-few-clues/

[Fergasun]

This accident will never be explained.  Did he have a history of speeding/reckless driving?

[WakkaWakka]

This accident will never be explained.  Did he have a history of speeding/reckless driving?

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/06/21/LA-Weekly-Michael-Hastings-car-speeding-had0history-of-drunk-driving

June 23rd

"While a number of conspiracies have evolved around the death of the left-wing journalist, most famous for a controversial Rolling Stone article that resulted in the 2010 firing of Afghan commanding general Stanley McChrystal, an investigator told the Weekly that, "With the engine torn off, the gas lines would rupture and it would start a fire."

In the same article, The Weekly also revealed that Hastings "does have a history with alcohol and drugs." Moreover, in one of his books, Hastings recalled a drunken car accident he was involved in at age 19, but also said he hadn't had a drink in 10 years. The Weekly adds:

And in this True/Slant piece from 2009, Hastings describes himself as a "a recovering drunk/addict/screw-up."

In another True/Slant piece, he says, "I have smoked crack."

A toxicology test is expected in a few weeks."

**no toxicology report has been released.

[skinsmarydu]

I can't get it to paste...tox report on HuffPost front page.

[Fergasun]

ABCNews: Autopsy Found Traces of Meth, Pot After Journalist's Death

After 14 years of sobriety, journalist Michael Hastings had returned to drugs and had traces of amphetamine and marijuana in his system when he drove his car into a tree hours after he was seen passed out in his home, according to an autopsy report.  Coroner's investigators said the drugs likely did not contribute to the June crash, which they classified as an accident.

...

Family members told investigators that Hastings had been using the hallucinogenic dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, though the drug was not detected in a blood test after the crash.

...

A family member told investigators Hastings didn't have a history of suicide attempts but believed he was invincible and could jump off a balcony and be fine.

 

[CurseReversed]

Good example of a headline misrepresenting the story.   

 

The story reports the Driver was sober, but he tested positive for marijuana and trace amounts of amphetamine in his system.  

Headline reads:  "autopsy found traces of meth and pot after journalists death."

 

Who knows what amphetamines he took?  Could have been ritalin for all anybody knows.  

 

Yet the headline implies he was high on meth...   Which he would have to be for it to come up in his system. 

 

And he could test for marijuana up to a month after use, and he had a med-marijuana prescription for PTSD. 

 

Bottom line is he was sober when he crashed,  not intoxicated, just with a dirty urine/blood test. 

 

What drugs he might have done in his life are irrelevant.