Transcripts For CSPAN2 Panel Discussion On Journalist Michael Hastings 20140713

Discussion on a topic familiar to him, journalism. The panelists are john avhon, editorinchief of the daily beast, marisa buchanan, dave cullen, a freelance journalist, matthew far welshing writer for Rolling Stone, alex gelber, citizen nyu journalism school, lou san reid, eric bates, editor at first look, the intercept, ruby cramer, correspondent for buzzfeed, will dana, jack grey, senior producer at cnn, anderson coopers 360, and jeremy. Here to act as the emcee is ben smith who was hastings last employer and editorinchief at buzzfeed. Since joining the company in january 2012, ben has built a newsroom of over 150 appropriators and editors, led expansion of over 20 content articles and built a team across the world. He has run for the wall street journal written for the wall street journal, the los angeles times, slate, the New York Post and the new republic. Ben will join us on stage in just a moment, but first, a short audio clip from the book. Introduction. Why i write. Finish my name is michael m. Hastings, and and im in my 20s. Im sitting in a studio apartment on the Lower East Side in manhattan, second floor overlooking or chard and bloomington. Theres snow dropping by the streetlights. Its three a. M. , and i just got off work. My magazine has a policy; a little item in the 57page Human Resources manual called the outside activities clause. It prevents employees from publishing journalism without the magazines permission. That could apply to writing books like this one, so i want to say right now this is fiction. Its all made up. This book is a story about the media elite. Maybe youre interested in that world. I have the ccs and the bcc and the replay all, three years worth, from 2002 to 2005, time and place specific, a very recognizable new york at least for now. I do have themes, too, but in a way though its not my love, and i cant say i understand it too well. Not murder, not in the whodunit sense. No ghosts or supernatural horrors or serial killers. Sex. Yes, i have a bunch of sex scenes. Theres war in the backdrop looming and distant and not real for most of these characters. Myself included. Maybe im talking genres and maybe the genre is corporate betrayal. Including the big decision that the entire media world is so interested in who and what is left standing. Itll take me about 300 pages, approximately 85,000 words, to get to that. By turning the page, you are one step closer to the truth. Thank you. Thank you guys all for coming. Im ben smith. Very few reporters have kind of real fans of their own, i think, like most people read us for what were writing about. And michael, i mean, i dont know, the turnout here shows as well as having people who really loved him, had people who recognized and followed his voice and byline. You know, which is kind of a very unusual and amazing thing. He was one of the great journalists of our generation, no doubt. Fearless and had a nose for conflict and really had figured out how to make people care and make Americans Care about the issues of power and life and death that the kind of cliches americans wont read about. He covered the great he had this idea that there were three Great American beats. Eric probably told him this. He, and one was politics, and one was hollywood, and he had written very powerfully about both of those, but i think his most powerful work was about war and peace including an exeau say in Rolling Stone of how the military leadership in afghanistan saw the civilian leadership that changed the course of the involvement in that war. He also had a novel in his desk drawer to the surprise of his friends, it was about the media, but it was also about the same themes of power and life and death. It is among other things very good. Even the New York Times had something nice to say about it today. There are and that and thats what were here to celebrate. First were going to see a video monodamage about michael. Montage. In my internship at newsweek, basically, i was working for free for a i few months. [inaudible] yeah, exactly. [inaudible conversations] you know, there was a heat wave that summer, my apartment had aircondition, so i was [inaudible] hired me and then, you know, after i looked back at it a couple of weeks later, and thats when i started doing the overseas. [inaudible] say your name and unit. Say hi to everyone. Okay. And then when you hope youre going to be home. All right. What do you think of baghdad . Its baghdad. Theres nothing you can really say about baghdad. Glad were here doing what we were supposed to be doing. Hey, whats up, everybody . Specialist dan gurks erin stationed in bag cad, iraq. 24 years old. Wow cut [laughter] im 26. I gotta tell ya, its been awesome. Its been fucking sweet. Words cant describe the satisfaction you get of busting in the home of an iraqi, taking away their only means of expending themselves and giving them a 2 lock while insurgents roam the streets preying on them. Details about the death squad was the stuff that i was most interested in never actually made it to the magazine. When i decided to leave newsweek, one of the things i wanted to do was capture all those details, and one of the first big stories i did was for gq where i went out to this outpost on the border of pakistan and afghanistan with this group of 20 guys and talked about people who never, no one ever listens to the average soldier, the private and the specialist. He lives his life not being listened to. Im sitting atop a fighting position at a border checkpoint along the afghan pakistan border. Be were here with a Field Artillery unit. They havent been out here in a while. So the idea behind the story general mccristal had was no ones ever really hung out with these to be ranking guys and sort of told it like it was with them. You know, so thats what my sort of thinking you know, should he have been fired . That was president obamas decision. I was awakened about i think it was two this the morning, and i in the morning, and i was told there was a problem, that the roming stone article was about to come out, and it was bad. As difficult as it is to lose general mccristal, i believe it is the mcchrystal i believe it is the right thing. The conduct recently presented in the published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general. One of the sort of interesting aspects to the story, and you touched upon it in your question, in the questioning period here. Wiz the only one disturb i was the only one who asked should you have written the story. And that was a response that a number of other journalists had as well. And to he, what it illuminated was the sort of extremely cozy relationship that many in my profession have established with very powerful figures and how much they cherish that relationship and the idea that anyone could threaten that, you know, causes great, great concern. So the sort of vicious kind of attacks i always get are from my other journalists. My colleagues. Is this going to prompt the military in general, the commanders in afghanistan in particular to be more wary of journalist this is. Of course. Because what you see is not what you get. Youve got someone whos making friends with you, pretending to be sympathetic, pretending to be something that theyre not. When you start an article with general mcchrystal making obscene gestures if general mcchrystal was not plausible person, no one would have been on cnn saying, hey, wait, was that off the record . But i think what ive tried to demonstrate without seeming like too much of a, you know, jerk, is that you can do this kind of reporting. If youre a young reporter out there, you can do this kind of reporting. You can be uncompromising and hardhitting and fair and accurate and honest, and you can still people will pick up the form be again. The Pakistani Border has been rife with tensions between u. S. And taliban fight beers. The u. S. Has launched a number of airstrikes across the border, and taliban fighters have been shooting rockets and missiles rockets and missiles, have been shooting okay. Im going to call this a day. [applause] i think were going to start with a number of us sharing some personal remarks about michael. I thought i would start. And i guess i couldnt handle getting too personal, so i was, i was looking back at some of our earlier emails or first emails because you can always search back, and i just remembered his first when we were talking, like, he had this real, i dont know what he was doing. It was a totally insane thing to do, we were really only known for imagine pictures at the time. And he had, like, this sort of sense because be he was very he was obsessed with media, he had this sense that we were doing something unique hot exciting which was his sort of thing. And so, but he mailed me very early on, quote i need a clause somewhere in the contract that says if buzzfeed fires me for writing something controversial or offensive, there will have to be some sort of severance payment. I have a demonstrated ability to piss people off, and i need assurance that buzzfeed has my back 100 , which we offered. And that was michael. He had incredible instinct for conflict. And also, surprisingly, this incredible delight in the internet, in the media, in what people around him were doing. I remember very early on i was looking at a fairly awkward photograph of a police horse dog something inappropriate doing something inappropriate, and michael totally entranced by this. And this book, which really you should get and realize, he was such an astute observer of everything that was going on around him all the time. When he was this young newsweek reporter of the supposed to be doing an amazing job of reporting on iraq, he was also reporting on newsweek and on the american media, and this really pretty bad moment for the american media. So buy the book, and i think i will hand this over to whoever eileen tells me is next. To eric. [inaudible] just go right around the stage. There you go. Sit here . Thats fine. This is eric bates who was michaels great editor at Rolling Stone. Yeah. One of the things that always impressed me about michael is lots of reporters want to tell the truth, and they want to get the story, but theres still all kinds of considerations that you generally factor into your work about what the publication needs or how its going to appear or what its going to do to your sources, and i think its pretty clear that michael did the job. He went places so that we could be there. He didnt believe that there was any he turned off his internal sensor, any internal sensor that he had often to his own detriment. Because thats what he believed the job was about. And i think this struck him most be strongly when he won the polk award for the mcchrystal story. And i was sitting at a table with him right in front of the stage. We were also sitting at the same table with the head of the university that gives the polk award, and the presenter got up to give the award, and for some reason they had selected a presenter who was not a very big fan of michaels [laughter] and who proceeded to present the award in such a way that made it clear that this person thought that michael really didnt deserve the award, that he had just kind of been in the right place at the right time and that perhaps he had gotten this story by some less than honorable means. At which point someone in the room shouted out very loudly, bullshit, and it was michael. [laughter] and i just sort of edged away from him a little bit, pretended like i didnt know him. [laughter] but that was michael. Even at his own awards ceremony, he would yell bullshit from the audience, and i think thats the same spirit he brought to his work. This is ruin key cram ruby cramer who michael found on reddit. I think i went and found him. Yeah, i didnt know michael for that long, but as soon as we met, he just sort of somehow by some grace took me under his wing a little bit. I reached out to him very randomly, basically, like the modern version of a cold call which is i made a reddit account and kind of, like, asked a question on his reddit ama which was are you in need or want of a parttime researcher . At the time, i was working fulltime at cbs, but i wanted to be Michael Hastings research assistant. I dont think ben at the time had budgeted anything for a researcher, but he, i think, you know, he writes in the book which is wonderful about a time when he was in his 20s, and he sort of was, he found me when i was or i found him when i was in my 20s, and i think what a lot of people dont know about michael is he was incredibly sort of fostering of young journalists. Not just me, so many people at buzzfeed, so many people who met him. He was very caring about whether or not we felt like that we were sort of somehow able to grow. I remember when he found out i hadnt been to an Obama Campaign event yet, he said, okay, were going to go on saturday, and the Campaign Event was in vermont. So we drove the six hours to vermont so that i could to to a campaign. That was how michael was with young reporters. And again, i think thats something people dont really know about him but was a huge part of his life. And what [inaudible] the executive editor at Rolling Stone. Actually, managing editor. Michael is dead for a year this month, so the with the resurfacing of the Bowe Bergdahl article, and i think thats such a great testament to michael and his instincts. You know, just his ability to get be on the story. I mean be, he came and met with eric and i right before the mcchrystal thing, and he kind of bowled us over. When he walked out of the room, we were like, hell never be able to do that. [laughter] you get the phone call two days later saying, oh, you know, they dont want to give me access, sorry. And be, like, mike called back three days later and said im flying out to afghanistan on monday. And that was, you know, i think, him. He just vibrate with the the sense of the story, and every time he came to see you, he had a million ideas and, you know, whatever drama and conflict was there, you know, he was just zoning in on it, you know . Youd walk out of a meeting, and thered be four things youd want him to do next, and the bigger problem was deciding what the thing to do was not how are we going to get this guy a story. It was a great loss for us personally and professionally, you know . The guy, like more than i think of he just sort of emerged fully formed, you know . I think you get that sense reading the book. Even at age 22 its like this kid from vermont showing up and savvy and smarter than anyone in the room whos been there for 20 years. So, you know, he was a special guy, and its just great that were here to celebrate him. Elliot . Im actually closing, so jer hawaii scale. Jeremy scale. Yeah, i was with michael about a week before he died, and it was sort of funny how i ended up hanging out with him that night. I had seen him maybe a month earlier, and we watched, we went to a bar in los angeles, and we watched Floyd Mayweather fight. Michael was a huge boxing fan. You know, both of us could hold our liquor, and we reached the end of the night, and i think we had gone through two and a half bottles of patron dekeel ya, and there was dekeel ya, and there was an argument over who was going to pay that almost actually came to blows. Michael was going to slug me. Then i saw him at a different time, and be he was completely different. I mean, it was really interesting because i had this sense the last time i saw michael that he had, like, somehow found be a new lease on life, and he was showing he pictures of a property in vermont and talking about the stories that he was working on, and it was incredible. He told me that he had this new bead on the nsa stories, and this was just as the snowden revelations were coming out, and he was doing an investigation of john prep man, and he also and it turns out he was right believed that the fbi was conducting an investigation into him or his work. But he seemed very much like he was as driven as ever and was looking forward to the next story, the next beat that he was going to be covering. And, you know, when we got the news that he was killed, that he died, i think all of us were flooded with these memories of michael, and most of the memories that i, that popped into my head were about what an apocket limittic apocket limittic observer he was. Michael didnt give a fuck in the elite correspondents liked him or not. In fact, they took pride in the fact that they didnt like him. He wanted to be the skunk in the room at the party. And i think those are the ones that are the best journalist, the ones that are not concerned about whether they get invited to the Joe Biden Party at the white house. Michael was the guy who would go to that, it was supposed to be off the record, and then he would be talk about how Hillary Clinton is a better shot than chuck todd. And and i remember watching him on all these shows, and ive described being on those shows at times like a boxing match, but it was a boxing match where everyone else was outmatched against michael. Mike all was michael was a great debater, but they were outmatched because michael had the gumption, the stomach, the temerity to ask is the tough questions. And he had tremendous empathy for the people who lived on the other side of the barrel of that gun in u. S. War. Whether it was the victims of drone strikes he did one of the first early stories about the killing of american citizens in drone strikes or it was soldiers who were sent to a totally failed war because they wanted to go to college. And whats funny about the mcchrystal story is that i had a lot of sources within jsoc, and i remember getting a call from one of my sources this is when sources would actually talk to you on the phone, now they wont because of the nsa. And they said, oh, did you hear about this Michael Hastings piece thats going to come out . Yeah, hastings was stuck in this bar with a bunch of jsoc guys, and theyre like, i think its going to be a doozy. Michael was around, a lot of shit was talked about biden and obama, but they were acting like were going to stick it to the white house. Its not like, oh, we were caught off guard, they all knew that michael was a reporter and that he was the kind of reporter that would report everything. So then the story comes out, and, you know, and the lady gaga, i think, was on the cover of that issue of Rolling Stone which was sort of a funny thing. So the story then comes out, and i get a text from a source, and the subject within jsoc who worked for Stanley Mcchrystal, and the subject line was whew, theres a lot worse shit michael could have written. So they were all saying were all fine, and the next thing you know, michael has brought down Stanley Mcchrystal, and everyone reported that story in the larger, Broader Media as mcchrystal making disparaging remarks about senior civilian u. S. Officials. But the real heart of that story and the thing that still almost never is discussed as Stanley Mcchrystal trots around the country giving speeches for god knows how many tens of thousands of dollars at Leadership Conferences is that michael also addressed the fact that mcchrystal helped cover up the death and the aftermath of how the military handled the killing of pat tillman. Michael talked about mcchrystals role in orchestrating a torture system in iraq. He never would softball any of the big issues. And yet at the end of the day the way this is written is Stanley Mcchrystal made obama feel bad. Michael did something most war journalists would ever do. He had the audacity to report the truth even if it was inconvenient to sources. I think if theres any journal who sort of owns the legacy of people like i. F. Stone and others in this society, its Michael Hastings. And the last thing ill say is when we started talking about forming the intercept, the first journalist we would have hired and would have stolen from you is Michael Hastings. Be i immediately imagined him walking into my office telling you he was going join [inaudible] yeah. But the ghost of michael walked the halls of all good, great, funny, incisive, powerful, hardhitting, apock that limittic, shitdisturbing journalism. [laughter] thanks, jeremy. [applause] i was going to use this time to talk about what a great friend mike was, but i know hes looking down saying cut the shit, youre there to plug my book, so well do that. [laughter] sorry if i read this, because other ill start crying and swearing. Hes right, though, if hes saying that because its a heck of a book, and as you know by now, he wrote it years ago. I found a message he sent me in 2010. Novel is good, need to be in vermont to do an edit, and the bastards at this hotel have his placed my laundry which pisss me off. Hed been writing it in print and in his head. I remember visiting him in vermont one day, the day of senator kennedys funeral, august 29, 2009. We went out to dinner near his parents house. Mike was chain smoking behind the wheel of his land rover, and when we got back, i wanted to watch the news, but mike, of course and this is part of what made him such an essential voice in journalism had little to no interest in anything involving Network Camera feeds and washington dig thatties big any tears. Instead, he insisted we watch a ufc match which is called the ultimate fighting championship, mixed martial arts, and that was also so like him. He didnt want to watch politicians pretend to be nice to each other for any reason, even a funeral. He just wanted to watch two guys beat the crap out of each other. I remember him talking about it that weekend this vermont, and the fact that he wrote it way back then before his career went to new heights with Rolling Stone and buzzfield, i think is part of what makes this such an important part of his legacy. Its essential a prequel, you know, to the Michael Hastings most people came to know after june of 2010, the Michael Hastings who with matt farwell wrote the monumental piece about sergeant Bowe Bergdahl in 2012 and the Michael Hastings whose life was changed irrevocably and profoundly by iraq. This book is crucial to understanding how he came to be that reporter. To read these pages in the new book and to hear his voice again so clear and so present, so specific about various sexual positions [laughter] was bittersweet. I miss his voice, i miss his phone be calls. He took the art of the phone call to almost grandmotherlike levels. He could talk for hours, and at some point hed say, anyway, dude, how are you doing . And id get excited to tell him whatever piece of news i had, and then id realize he only stopped talking so he could light another cigarette. [laughter] i remember him calling me from paris mentioning some experience, i was walking my dog and only half listening, and, of course, i remember what he said a couple months later when i called him in afghanistan to tell him i wanted him to come on tv to talk about it. Fuck you, im too big for cable. [laughter] but i wrote a piece the other day for the daily beast, and i said because this is how ive been feeling every day for the past year is theres really nothing natural about losing a friend at 33. Theres no silver lining. Its just unvarnished tragedy, and im not sure how long its supposed to talk to stop missing someone or to stop thinking about him multiple times a day or you think mike would hate this, or mike couldnt stand that guy. He could not abide spin, and he reveled in stirring the pot. And if you thought he was angry and distrustful with the world, it was because he was, but he was also a sweetheart and a friend of immeasurable love and support. So, you know, our grief remains tonight, and the joy of having him in our lives is now confined to memories and his writing. But i think we all have the opportunity to honor his work and his singular voice by buying this incredible novel, and i hope you do. Thanks, jack. A few other friends are going to come up now. His collaborator, matt farwell. When i first met michael, i was about two years out of the army and had done nothing. I had been wandering, i had a severe case of ptsd, and, you know, i was looking for a new direction in life, and i wound up talking to Michael Hastings on the phone outside of a motel this phoenix, arizona in phoenix, arizona. And one thing led to another x pretty soon were heading out to sun valley, idaho, to interview the bergdahl family. And i add gotten oral surgery that morning, and he made sure to give me a lot of crap about the fact that i showed up to the biggest interview of my life with my mouth open and bleeding and with the bergdahl familys biggest concern about the interview being whether i would get through without bleeding on their table or having that happen. But, you know, he in a lot of ways, i lost my brother in 2010 to a helicopter crash, and in a lot of ways michael filled that role for me for a while. And to lose him was really hard too. But he was just such a good friend and changed my life so much, im just incredibly grateful to have known him. Thank you, molly and bruce. [applause] alexis gelber. Good evening. Like quite a number of people in this room, i worked with michael at the last magazine. [laughter] one of the things that i think so great about in this book is that after a very sad and difficult year for his friends and family, its really wonderful to be reminded of how funny michael was. This is a hilarious book, and there are lots of great scenes, theres incredible dialogue, there are acutelyobserved bits of Office Politics that are just so entertaining, and its really great to be reminded to hear that voice of his again. I had the privilege of meeting michael when he was an intern, and we shared stories of our love of Rural Vermont and bonded over that and then got to work with him on the 2008 special election project. And he was covering various campaigns during the primary, very tough primary season. And he would sometimes, he was on the road a lot, but he would come into new york sometimes to have lunch with me and peter goldman, the project creator and guru, and really something of a mentor to michael. And we would sit and have lunch and hear michael tell the most hilarious stories of the malfunctions and the mishaps and the dysfunction of the various campaigns that he was covering. And he could just be hilarious about that. Michael obviously was a great war reporter, but he was also a great political reporter, and he was good at he just had this acerbic sense of knowing how to report a political story. He was really great about president ial politics, he was great about military politics, and as youll read in this book if you havent done so already, he was really great about Office Politics. [laughter] after we all left newsweek, michael obviously had this Great Success with his Rolling Stone piece about general mcchrystal, and i invited him to come to nyu to speak to the graduate students that i teach, and it was a room like this. There are i mean, standing room only. Michael was a star in the journalism world. And as ruby was saying, he was just so generous to students. They loved him. He spoke to them, he was very generous with his time, with his advice. He spoke to them in a voice they really responded to. He was proto feign, he was pro feign, he was probe feign be, he was funny, he was, you know, skeptical, and they couldnt get enough. At one point somebody asked the question about the ontherecord stuff, and he said, you know, he said i always had my notebook there or my tape recorder. They knew perfectly well that i was reporting this story. But he said, you know, they just hung out with me, and i guess they got used to me, and, you know, he said finally, you know, when they were stuck in paris for quite a number of days, finally when it looked like they were going to be able to leave, he said one of the guys said to him one of mcchrystals aides said to him, dude, you are so going with us to berlin. And the way he said that brought down the house, and whenever i need a laugh or something to smile about, i remember michael saying that to a room full of devoted journalism students. Anyway, its wonderful to be here with everybody today and thank you. [applause] ali gharib. So ill be really brief. I only got to know michael the last couple years of his life which still sounds strange to say and, again, to echo what ruby said because this is what really hit home for me was just how incredibly friendly michael was. You know, heres this guy who for a lot of us was an idol to us, and you see him on tv tearing people down mercilessly, being funny this doing it, but just tearing people apart. And when you met him in person, he couldnt have been a nicer guy. He, you know, maybe we had a different, different experience here, but i remember hanging out with michael where he, you know, it was clear that he wanted to talk about something, but he really gave a shit what you thought about it first. I mean, that was kind of his, you know, he would tell you about whatever stories he was working on and what was going on, and he wanted to know what you thought about them and what you were up to. I dont know if this was just like, you know, like you do see in the novel that he was a really keen observer of everything around him, and i wrote in my remembrance of michael that you could always see his eyes kind of darting around the bar as he was talking to you. But then hed, when you finished his sentence, hed turn back and ask whatever the central question was to whatever it was that you just said, you know . He was listening the entire time, incredibly attentive, and i just, you know, i miss him terribly, and its hard to imagine that hes gone even still a year later. So thats it. [applause] john. Hey there. I was a friend of mikes. I worked with mike at music international. He came in ans intern in the summer of 2002, and you could hear from the rid joe, he came in video, he came in because there was airconditioning, hung out for three years and went to iraq. That was bullshit per usual. Mike writes in the book about being intimidated to sit in the cubicle he was in, the last summer intern there was a guy who had come there from johannesburg, he did the best reporting newsweek had by my memory about september 11th at ground zero. Three weeks after 9 11 he flew out to afghanistan to report over there. The summer intern before there was malcolm [inaudible] whos about to go back to the democratic republic of congo. Its an intimidating seat to be in. But if he actually was intimidated, it wasnt anything youd actually see interacting with mike. After a quiet first few days, the first meaningful thing mike said to me was go fuck yourself. I still cant remember why he said that, but i remember our friendship starting there, i would say it back to him, and basically for ten years we said variations of that to each other over emails. One of the things we would discuss in the cafeteria at newsweek were the things that were going to cause trouble for the magazine. It might surprise people that in 2002 mike talked a rot about Rush Limbaugh and glenn beck. Glenn beck in 2002 had been a National Radio for all of six months, but wed be talking about the news of the day, about the american taliban or enron or whatever, and mike would insert into the conversation what glenn beck thought of it to which my response would be who the fucs is glenn beck . I dont care. Mike had an amazing eye for the angle about what was going to affect the story. I could never tell if he actually agreed or if he just understood that glenn beck had a type of critique how people did the news that would slowly catch hold. But if you try and figure out why mike was so successful, he had a great eye for where those big stories or with going to the come from and the angle you had to take on it. I dont think its not surprising to any of us to see, as someone said before, how much mikes been in the news the past week or the past month, the fact that you see the bergdahl story come back or to see the rave reviews responding to this book. I mean, what he did in this book, he didnt just write a great book, he wrote a book about a subject, it turns out, people are still very, very hungry to read about. Which when i read the book, i wasnt sure people would sunday to it in a huge way. I thought it was very well done, and it seemed very inside baseball and it was newsweek, which, frankly, hasnt been the same in a long time. So i wasnt sure if it would find a big audience. But what also about is that critique of people who decide where the decent range of discussion is. And thats something thats still very much getting people angry, and people still feel like michaels one of the only people within the scope of the acceptable Mainstream Media that can still talk about it. I heard it on morning joe, so i googled it, and the first thing that came up was a link talking about the book, so i concluded on it, and it was a segment from earlier that day where there was a round table of people talking about what we should to in iraq. And it was the exact same kind of people who you would see us telling us what we should do in iraq this 2002. And that made me angry, and that makes lots of people angry, and i think this book is going to have an amazing effect on people not because they want to know the inside dirt about what happened at newsweek in 2002 or 2005, because theyre still angry about the thing things michaels angry about. Elise, thanks for having us. [applause] dave cullen. So i wanted to tell a fun story because michaels very fun, so i was thinking about the one time i got to see somebody get a bad review. In the car on the way up to vermont, elise is reading it in the backseat, and michaels like, oh, god, what the okay, i dont want to hear it, i dont want to hear it. So theres silence for about a minute. And then he said read the rest, read the rest, i need to hear it. And that went back and forth for a while. The car was getting faster and faster, and i was getting nervous, and he had no idea that it was going faster. But thats the kind of story i love that makes me, that makes me smile about mike because thats, that was him, and hes an excitable boy, and i loved that about him. And i think thats the part of the persona maybe that is out there, because he would be that way on tv. But to me, thats, that was real, but it was maybe 5 or 10 of the part of him that i knew. And to me, a duller story is much more about, i think, what made mike so wonderful was the first time i ever met him which was him interviewing me which is weird. Ive only made one friend in my life that way, because hes really special. So he liked my book, and he wanted to know about how i did some things, so he called me up to interview me and write about it because he was a sponge, and he was a lifelong learner, and if he lived to 80, he would still be calling up people he or work he admired ask learning about them. So i thought it was like an incredibly easy interview because i sort of have the compulsive, what do they call it, the compulsive disorder that cracked me up, and i just spill everything. During the interview i noticed while it was going on that i was saying things that i dont normally tell. And i realized, oh, i do have boundaries. [laughter] but he was going right past them and kind of effortlessly, and without me sort of like knowing it or thinking about it until it was out of my mouth. I realized this that very first phone call with him, wow, hes got the gift. He knows how to get people to open up. And you would think that most journalists have that gift, thats pretty basic. Most journalists i find are pretty shitty at it. And when i hear people talk about the tough questions they tell, its not about the questions, and you dont get anybody to open up by being tough with them. You well, you get em to open up by, like, a lot of things, but by letting them trust you. And be i think because you understand them, and i could tell right away the first time mike was understanding me and was trying and is really cared about me and knowing. And when i saw it on the page, i just read it last week, and it was one of the best pieces done. And i saw there that he protected me as a source. I was his source the first time, and he protected me not by withholding anything i said, but by revealing me and saying everything i said in a context and in a way that made me real on the page and human and that i was okay and proud of. And i think thats how he felt he had to protect the source, is by telling the truth and making them as they really were. He had an amazing gift for doing that, and be its on every page of this book which is why its so fantastic. To me, its like its life, its well, its my struggles as a writer, its the favorite, my favorite novel ive read since jesus son by Dennis Johnson about 20 years ago, and hes fantastic. Be. [applause] be. And it made all of us around him better to have that example so good that in front of us, to have the intense commitment what the same time the real get to take work seriously but not itself. You know, he had a moralistic sense that journalists are supposed to have, do you idea that you were supposed to be a slick to. He believed that. This Administration Knows he was not going to be a stenographer to anyone in power and he also had the builtin give, the gene that hemingway described as being a builtin shop for bull should detect there. He wasnt going to get spun. He hated to leave then liars at a visceral intensity that itself is deeply moral and set up clear boundaries, that was the standard that we all can repair two. He was a subversive cat in the best way. Remember joking with them. You would always replacer inside. This is not a blazer in tight kind of guy. And i asked him about it. He very patiently explained to me, you know, no one ever stops you if you are wearing a coat and tie. You can go anywhere. And it was all about access. That was the work sued because people would drop their guard a little bit more. He could get a little further down the hall to tell the real truth as he saw it and he was uncompromising and he saw further than most folks and they saw with real moral clarity. And you got to know he would love a pet even now a year beyond the grave peacemaking people laugh in making people nervous and during the pot and causing trouble. That is the way he would want it. We got to get not only of the square, which is an extract or a body of work for a guy who died at the young age of 33. But it memories still makes it better. [applause] marisa buchanan. When i met my call, we were both boys on the faster in the 2008 president ial campaign. He was a terribly welldressed newsweek reporter and i was the over exhausted, over excitable tv producer. During those long hours on the road, he was quiet and brooding most of the time on the bus actually. He had lost andy, his fiancee to a car bomb in baghdad months before that. He was actually very lost in those days, so terribly last. Over those weeks and months on the road, he slowly opened up. We didnt talk shop and we became friends. I addenda producing a nightly news peas of michael underscores the. It was a love story set in a war zone and adaptive andy had crashed him and humbled him for a time. Fortunately for us it didnt slow down his easy as them for storytelling. Getting the words out of his head on his entire experience was needed eric p. And frankly the only way to cope with staggering loss like that. When he finally returned to the middle east, he would check in on me at ungodly hours. Hey, it is mike. You up . Sure its 3 00 a. M. , but lets talk. We would talk about the stories he was working on, with stories i was working on. I remember thinking each time we taught more life in passion came back into his voice and his work and when he met elise and talked about her, i thought he got his back. He is alive again. Not my goal with life and passion was all over this great book. The eagerness, ambitiousness come a quick study, remarkably aware of the power of wellplaced gossip and as both andy and elise saw firsthand, cynical and idealistic about journalism at the same time. He had a nose for a good story from the very beginning and more enthusiasm been in the field and identifying hypocrisy through good reporting than any reporter i ever met. In the book he captures the willful ambition and starstruck nature that many researcher, myself included hats when you start out at a legacy news organization. Reading it took me back immediately to those strange days leading up to the war in iraq and its past few days about the headlines in iraq as people have said has only intensified those emotions. He captures the build up among media elites perfectly, witnessing the messy way the first draft of history was whispered first, written, fact check from a scratched, highlighted, rewritten and scratched out again. I really, really miss him. I wouldve loved laughing, commiserating, debating and arguing about this book within, its brashness and brutal honesty. Thanks. [applause] i think we have time for a relatively abbreviated panel. Thank you all for that. I guess i thought the question that marisa just race, which is sadly we are talking about sending some american soldiers to iraq is so much in the air right now that before i ask you about it, there is one mall thing that i think about michael where we differ a little is that being as i dont think he particularly liked pacing people are riling people up, but he really couldnt help himself. Even though he really often like to often like these people and did not wish them harm in any particular way, his obligation to tell the truth about what they were doing and say totally over rose does. He really always came out the same way. In a way always thought that was a struggle. It made me admire him or her. So are we doing the same thing over again in our coverage of the middle east right now or have we learned things . So which agree that its true. In general there seems to be a default position aided them on the part of the Broader Media. I was referring to about michael taking enjoy. The best role for being a good reporter can still be a a two people appeared by their political opponents are not i think is irrelevant. You should treat people with respect. I more refer to a specific case is or one of us are rather with day of the knightridder about chuck todd with the other people and that we hear they were off about it but didnt have the to Say Something on twitter. Michael enjoyed pacing off, speaking of chuck todd, why is chuck todd doing analysis on their iraq war and msnbc . Its really quite incredible. Chuck todd has been embedded in that newsroom on the white house lawn for his entire adult life and he somehow was there, which is why was making a point about michael earlier. He was going to shows, cnn, msnbc and michael could say when i was in iraq last time, or when i was in baghdad and he would shred whatever talking head was stapled to the chair for the entire day to be the expert on where we are going. I think michael was way ahead of his time in a lot of ways. In other ways he was an oldschool reporter. He was a guy who would get out there in the field and did to journalism by chat in nature text searching. He liked to be around people. I stick with my position. Jack, you are running one of the powerful shows what can these people. Other things he learned learn from this book . The lovely lady from barnes noble gave me a promotion in miniature. Unlike the lowest level producer you can find in the cnn cafeteria. [laughter] thats who really runs things anyways. B. Mac a media star is nice. I mean, the great thing about 10, one of many great games listed is very easy to be friends with someone whos famous or rich. Theres a lot of razzledazzle that comes from not in big tables and chat like that. I remember visiting him after he left newsweek when his next but couldnt get published and he was as great of a person then as he was when he became super high profile. That says something as does something to me that he never changed. He did my tv or bestseller operators, he didnt let that change in. He was an outstanding, remarkable human gene. I love having him on whenever i could get him to come on. Our friendship did not guarantee. I had to really beg. He was the best. He was the best. I wonder if this is something i also think about. One of the features of the book is, whats it called, the sort of Media Attention between newsweek. Although they call the wretched in the book. Part of the theme is i think he thinks that the new thing is pure, but winds up thinking it is as corrupt. This is obviously something i probably think about a bad. As he built a new thing, how do you avoid airing the old thing where to you or can you . In particular, the things he was successor to run power. Yeah, i think michael recognize that all lofty rhetoric, you know, conceal some heart of darkness ultimately and that human nature and institutions being what they are, every upstart if they are successful becomes the institution and then its an institution. That makes way for another upstart in an endlessly renewing cycle. I think in the book, someone mentioned earlier how keen the book is about Office Politics and the dynamics that go on. But i think what is really striking about the book is michael is very keen about the interior monologue of the journalists and the complicated nature of god. There is a scene in the book when a journalist is on the scene in the war and its witnessing some pain and simultaneously kind of thinking through the story. And its very true. Its very accurate about that process and about all of the stuff that goes into that. I think michael had, you know, look, this event tonight and all that michael has achieved is part of a process of canonization, which means returning michael into something he wasnt ultimately. We will make of him what we need him to be for us. I think michael would be the first person to shout out at that because michael was messy and michael had demons that he wrestled with and i think that because he was sympathetic, that gave him the capacity to see the messiness and others, to see the complicated mess of others and to try to capture that in full and to not shave it away and pretty it up and i think we should do the same for michael. Banks. [applause] Michael Roper Rolling Stone a story that broke like stories story has broken through. He rudely create complex wrenching story that i think didnt breakthrough at the time. How do you do that . Should people pay more attention . He does Say Something about afghanistan that you were ready to hear . I think you had to wait because it was not the end of the headlines the moment. It was a much smaller in some ways more in this story about a guy that people hadnt heard of before and really didnt hear them until a month ago. I think the challenge was how do i follow that up . We were always hoping would get the next huge thing out of it. We need to let go of that and do what he wanted to do and what he was interested in at the time. But the bird that story in some ways this is great story. I also think the crystal story, how misunderstood it was. The war was failing and the whole second half of the story when they are in afghan and, the gis there standing in questioning the strategy of the war. I thought that was the thing everyone would be focusing on come focusing on, what a disaster this wasnt it no one talked about that. I think it is sort of a tragedy. We look at iraq now and its the same five people talking about it and we are not looking at what is happening in the real cost of it. When working with birddog real quick. When he was released a couple years ago and never when all of a sudden rediscovered the Rolling Stone piece and i feel there are so that the pieces linking to cherrypicking, whatever details they wanted from it to fit their narrative. The one thing that struck me and i said this to people at work. And now, out of all the people ive known in my life who wouldve given over all the benefit of the doubt, my case is he knew that war talked people up in that it was in 10 and all kinds of skewing the way you look at issues and politics. I just know that he would have have obviously to be around to talk about it now wouldve been a blessing. I think he wouldve been interested to see how people took his reporting, which because people are spinning it both ways. He wasnt prowar. He certainly wasnt antisoldier. He was so proud of his brother, jeff, who fought in iraq. I just think its interesting that even now his reporting is so powerful that both sides seem to taint that they can use it for their own kind of slant. One of my favorite moments is when general mcchrystal came out and commented on the birdsall situation and said we shouldnt convict birdsall, first off leave no man behind. He was completely supportive of the swap and second you shouldnt convict birdsall until we knew all the facts. I thought how great it mcchrystal and michael would see eye to eye on that. It is also important to remember we forget when michael wrote in the crystal story, afghanistan was also not in the headlines. Everything was a rat, rat, rat called the time. We would have story meetings about every three months or so i try to get a pitch during afghanistan was some horrible pitch title like the forgot more, which is a horrible way to pitch anything to say is forgot. Its arty dad to many say that. Were trying to find a way to get something on afghanistan. Michaels ability to recognize a lens through which you could use award can be so much about the war and bring it down to a human level. People forget the story was a profile of the man and what comes through very much is not these got you comments, but that they were part of an entire life in history at this guide is pretty seamless. So michael didnt just alter the course of that war. He reminded people that there was a war that was on its way to becoming the longest war in american history. That in and of its hopeless incredible accomplishment. He was a complicated guy that complicated relationships as reporters do. That doesnt totally shocked me that the crystal would wind up siding with him in some sense. I was doing a story that he probably suggested that probably wasnt usually flattering to david petraeus. I coded the military was looking for the number and a set who can i talk to any scent of . Six email addresses and phone numbers. Yet incredibly hard on petraeus. I said i assume i should mention your name. He said much in my name and sure enough they were thrilled to talk because people had a respect for him. His ideological enemies had respect for his integrity because i think often thats a fairly rare thing. I think we need to sell this book a little more because its a really amazing book. One final push here. The book is incredible. Even for those of you walking in from starbucks, this is a read. Go downstairs. If you are into the journalism discussion, seriously get it. They put that on the back. Dont recommend it to euros poker. Ill be surprised. Mr. Favorite part of the book, written . Honestly, for me the experience of picking it up, reading it, hearing his voice in the most it was like michaels voice is back in my head and i was hearing him on the phone sentence one to the very end and not for me actually took this is not helpful in selling the book, but it took me several times to read it because his voice was so strong and i was not ready to hear it, but its wonderful because another thing about michael as he is amazing report aired, but it is an amazing writer. I think he started writing has hired inconsistently as he worked at being a good reporter. Youve got to remember getting phone calls from him like all hours of the night like everyones dead. Hey, listening to these hunter s. Thompson tapes in my living room laying on the couch listening to these hunter s. Thompson tapes. Thought he was good. Or hey do you have making of the president 1962 . Can you pull it out of look at page 72 because theres this sentence that you need to see. Literally it was like kennedy tripping over something. Anyways, he was a wonderful writer. He at one of the most strong, this aint the voices sort of on the page, but also just facetoface. If you were his friend, you knew his voice at that make sense. So i think we are more or less out of time. Elise, which you like to wrap it up . I want to thank everyone for coming out tonight in the show of support i felt all year has been so absolutely amazing to know that uncles work has resonated so far and wide angle could today to resume. What i love about this week as the Washington Post compared him to hunter s. Thompson. My work is done. That is basically one big thing he would care about. But also, i love that so many people got to share stories about him and share his funny side, his warm side, his loving guy. Because i do think that he taught me so much about an additional love and about looking at human failing in writing with compassion and that really matter to him. He always said his literary heroes for heroes who could write with compassion and look at him one and understand they are perfect, the capture that humanity have learned something from it. Michael, as we discussed coming as we discuss coming you know, he could be volatile. He could be difficult. He never was boring. I was so lucky to have him in my life and i am glad that he has a very broad, wide canon of work that we cannot read for many years to come. So thanks, everyone. [applause] 19 of the participants will be timing bookplates as a memento of the event is one reason to buy the book. Thank you very much. One more round of applause for our panelists. [applause] booktv asked, what are you reading this summer . Tavis smiley, what is on your Summer Reading list . Theres so much on there. I have to read books all the time for the work i do. But theres always things on my this that i have to get through summer to get through. A couple books, little brown, the