The company I work for - an international infrastructure and environment firm (fancy term for a large engineering company) is constantly challenging each of us "who's your replacement"; the implication is that as you grow in your career, who's going to fill the empty slot you leave behind? I read an article which, for me, took that concept to a new place.
So who's Sy Hersh's replacement? As quoted in the recent Matt Taibbi article,
America's pre-eminent investigative reporter of the last half-century, Hersh broke the story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and was on hand, nearly four decades later, when we found ourselves staring back at the same sick face in the mirror after Abu Ghraib. At age seventy, he clearly still loves his job. During a wide-ranging interview at his cramped Washington office, Hersh could scarcely sit still, bouncing around the room like a kindergartner to dig up old articles, passages from obscure books and papers buried in his multitudinous boxes of files. A hopeless information junkie, he is permanently aroused by the idea that corruption and invisible power are always waiting to be uncovered by the next phone call. Somewhere out there, They are still hiding the story from Us -- and that still pisses Hersh off.
Ok, so seventy isn't old if you're still loving life. I hope to be having that much fun working at seventy, because I'm not expecting the Fund to have crap for me by the time I reach retirement age. At the same time, no matter how much you invest in your health, it gets harder to maintain the physical, emotional and mental health needed to be a high-powered investigative reporter, as you get older. So, who's the offload for Seymour Hersh?
(Note: part of reason for writing this is to flush out the folks who know those names and will provide those links to the writers who are starting to do what Mr. Hersh has done for the past forty years)