Rolling Stone Writer Denied Permission to Embed

Michael Hastings at the ISAF base in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Rollingstone.com)

2008 Fellow Kelly Kennedy was quoted by Joe Strupp in Media Matters criticizing the Pentagon’s denial of the embedding request of Michael Hastings, the reporter whose profile in Rolling Stone of Gen. William McChrystal led to the general’s resignation.

“Not allowing Hastings — or any other journalist — to embed violates the military’s own stated rules to allow unbiased coverage in the war zone — good or bad,” the MRE statement says.

The Dart Society’s efforts on behalf of journalists in conflict zones, most notably the gathering at Bretton Woods, the booklet, “Reporting War,” and a discussion at American University on military-media relations, have shown the difficulty war reporters — particularly embeds — have reporting the bad. Photographing tears at a makeshift funeral or the horrors to civilians, or reporting even the basics of a scene often carry risks to embeds of getting kicked out.

But as Kelly Kennedy proved in publishing her book, “They Fought for Each Other,” and Hastings reported shortly after the piece ran in Rolling Stone, combat troops have been supportive of journalists telling the truth about war. Hastings said in a BBC radio interview that when the soldiers he was with in Kandahar learned it was he who wrote the Rolling Stone piece, they told him the story needed to be told.

“A number of troops and private contractors have told me what they think of the story,” Hastings blogged. “It’s a small, informal, biased sample, for sure. But it’s generally broken down into two categories of feeling: glee or relief.”

Hastings has signed a book deal to provide an “unfiltered” account of his time with McChrystal.