June 18 of this year will go down in sports history as one of the greatest NBA Finals games—and most embarrassing fan performances—ever, the day Brazilians joined the rest of the world in grassroots income inequality-rooted protest, and the day Facebook and Twitter set their twenty-first century duopoly in stone. But something else happened that day, and the establishment media is clearly bending over backwards to avoid reporting it. As advertiser-free organizations like WikiLeaks and renegade journalists like Michael Hastings force the world to debate the vitality of a complacent, compliant media, print and television news outlets ought to be evolving to keep up with the changing world around them—but they seem more intent on keeping their noses in the air, and we don’t all have to pay the price of their arrogance.
Perhaps nowhere is this irreconcilable hubris more apparent than at the offices of the New York Times, where tradition and precedent far outweigh honesty and vigilance. As exemplified in Andrew Rossi’s documentary, Page One, the sense of superiority running rampant at the Times and other major news outlets is a major factor distinguishing run-of-the-mill reporters from Hastings-caliber journalists, and it’s also the primary reason for the 162-year-old paper’s current financial problems. The tragically one-sided film salutes Times culture columnist David Carr as something of a renegade because he has battled drug addiction and eventually learns to embrace social media as a journalistic tool, while presenting twenty-first century media icons like Arianna Huffington, Markos Moulitsas, and Julian Assange as little more than gadflies seeking to cash in on a wounded industry. Rossi briefly profiles Times media reporter Brian Stelter, who is from then on hailed as a model of the future—because he has a Twitter account. Listening to Carr and Stelter speak about their profession brings to mind the exclusivity debate between Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly twenty-five minutes into Hitchcock's Rear Window. After Stewart tells her she’s not equipped to join him in his adventures as a photojournalist, Kelly retorts:
“What is it for traveling from one place to another, taking pictures? It’s just like being a tourist on an endless vacation (he tells her to shut up) It’s ridiculous to say that it can only be done by a special private little group of anointed people!"
Had Rossi allotted equal speaking time to Huffington, Moulitsas, and Assange, or bothered to interview any of the true titans of modern journalism—Michael Hastings, Jeremy Scahill, Kevin Sites—they probably would have had something to say about the dangers of a blindly compliant, self-serving national media. They would have stressed the insignificance of formal qualifications and credentials when held up next to the kind of courage it takes to accurately report the kind of stories Hastings, Scahill, and Sites’ names have become synonymous with. To explore these areas of the debate would have meant Rossi was doing everything in his power to put forth the best possible version of all applicable arguments—a tenet of journalism—but it also would have destroyed the thesis of his film, which is a shameless regurgitation of the self-fabricated idea that the New York Times—and print media in general—is an integral part of the Fourth Estate.
There seems to be an inappropriately articulated sense within the journalistic community—as seen in the Times’ highly controversial obituary of Hastings—that The Runaway General was somehow equivalent to Diego Maradona’s “hand of God” goal in the 1986 World Cup, but the parallel is patently erroneous. The outcome of a sporting event can only be called legitimate if the rules of the game are adhered to, as any given sport is defined by a specific set of inflexible rules, and when Maradona broke the cardinal rule of soccer—don’t touch the ball with your hands—he compromised the legitimacy of the game he was engaged in. Furthermore, by allowing Argentina to advance to the semi-finals, FIFA directly compromised the legitimacy of the World Cup itself.
Journalism is not a sport—the extralegal rules it puts in place for itself are nothing more than a set of guidelines (akin to the service industry mantra “the customer is always right”) and the breaking of such rules doesn’t undermine the legitimacy of the profession in any way. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein broke a litany of journalistic rules in order to break the Watergate story, and the profession came out better for it. They may have personally burnt many bridges while walking that ethical tightrope, but that’s nobody’s business but their own, and it seems safe to say—if only because of Bob Woodward’s continued access to the White House under both Democratic and Republican administrations—that those bridges were better off burnt. Had the New York Times chosen to burn a few bridges in 2003 instead of funneling uncorroborated White House reports of WMD in Iraq, upwards of two million deceased human beings would likely still be walking the Earth, and the Times might not be struggling to survive.
Michael Hastings wasn’t Lance Armstrong or Diego Maradona—if anything, he was the Martin Luther of journalism. But the potential reformation inspired by his life and work has less to do with his subjects than his so-called contemporaries. His edict was nailed not only to the doors of the FBI, CIA, NSA, and JSOC, but to those or of every major media outlet seeking to preserve twentieth-century methods for their own benefit.
Counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke has spent most of his professional life hunting the world's most dangerous criminals, and providing conspiracy theorists with the empirical evidence needed to debunk their outlandish beliefs. But even he has acknowledged the possibility of there being some truth to the musings spreading like wildfire on Reddit and Twitter. Perhaps, then, the most logical of the conspiracy theories—that his car was tampered with by a member of one of the many government organizations he fearlessly went after—is worth assessing.
So, if someone working with the FBI, CIA, NSA, or—most likely—JSOC was ordered to assassinate Hastings (or in any way catalyze his demise), what would it look like?
It is virtually inconceivable that the FBI would be able to conduct such an under-the-radar operation without the slightest hiccup, so the possibility of Hastings being offed by the Bureau can pretty much be ruled out—unless, of course, there was interdepartmental cooperation. Scarily enough, if either the NSA or JSOC were responsible, it probably would have looked a lot like it does—high-tech, with no trace left behind. Were the CIA responsible, Hastings likely would have been “double-tapped” in the same fashion as Gary Webb, and the papers would currently be reporting—as they did with Webb—that he committed suicide. In Webb’s own words:
“The reason I’d enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn’t been, as I’d assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job…The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn’t written anything important enough to suppress.”
Michael Hastings, of course, wrote very little that wasn’t important enough to suppress, and it is primarily for this reason that his death has been the subject of so many conspiracy theories. But this is far from the only contributing factor. He was only thirty-three years old, appeared to be happily married and mentally fit enough to keep doing his job, and though he was once plagued by substance abuse problems, there is no evidence suggesting he was anything but sober for the last twelve years of his life. This all but negates any claims that he died from natural causes, a suicidal rage, or driving under the influence. But the most damning bit of evidence against the government line—the same line repeated by the New York Times and its cohorts (much the same way “WMD in Iraq” was)—is the fact that at the time of his death, Hastings was working on what he
described to close friends as "a big story" that would require him to go off the radar for a bit. His wife, Elise Jordan, sent a tweet denying that he was working on a story about Jill Kelley (which would inevitably have been about Generals Allen and Petraeus). This leaves only the NSA.
Soon after his death, WikiLeaks let the world know that Hastings had recently contacted their lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, "saying that the FBI was investigating him." As Hastings’ followers know, the last article he wrote was a scathing critique of the NSA’s unethical surveillance practices—one in which he accurately called out Democratic leaders for acting like “a gang of civil liberty opportunists.” The last words of that article were as follows:
“Perhaps more information will soon be forthcoming.”
Now it is a virtual certainty that the information will not be unearthed unless someone else—or, hopefully, a generation of people—picks up the torch Hastings carried with such a unique blend of pride and humility. If we truly want to honor our dearly departed Michael Hastings, all we need to do is see to it that his death pushes us in the direction of journalistic evolution, rather than away from it and into the arms of compliance.
When Michael Jackson died after voluntarily having Propofol pumped into his veins on a nightly basis, the American media acted under the assumption that it may have been a homicide and did a penetrative analysis of anyone who might have wanted him dead—this lasted well over a year. Yet when a healthy young journalist—who also happens to be one of a tiny handful who are willing to speak truth to the most powerful men in the world—dies in a fiery car-wreck, American newspapers rush to publish dismissive obituaries, and dive into the next important story. As thick a pill as it may be for fans to swallow, the truth is that Michael Jackson in no way directly contributed to the betterment of American democracy. The same can be said about most Americans, and their loved ones. This is not a mark of shame, but a truthful distinction. Voting is not enough. Donating money is not enough. Volunteering is not enough. Calling yourself a journalist is not enough. Securing Michael Hastings life as one that was not lived in vain is the only appropriate action for those who still believe in a free American press. If he was killed by the powers-that-be, it most likely had less to do with his work or personality than what he represented—a new kind of journalist; one that didn’t play by archaic rules put in place to protect those that the press is supposed to be protecting the people from. Whether or not it was catalyzed by outside forces, the leadership at the FBI, CIA, NSA, and JSOC is surely hoping that it quells some of Jeremy Scahill’s journalistic enthusiasm; hoping that it scares a generation of young journalists into playing by the rules, instead of doing their jobs. The choice is theirs/yours…