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A review by jiujensu
Reporter: A Memoir by Seymour M. Hersh
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I've long admired his reporting and always wanted to read about how he did what he did. Maybe his story has the usual hallmarks of white male success - not wealthy, but racism and sexism helped a great deal.
Aside from that, it has those romantic old newsroom stories about cub reporters, teletype, running in the rain to get the story in, secret sources he convinces to talk, etc. My Lai, CIA involvement with Allende coup and tracking anti-war protesters to unpopular stories about US crimes in Iraq and elsewhere. He seems the last of a certain kind of reporter that holds power to account. I hope I'm wrong about that.
It ends with a chapter on the time period in which I became acquainted with his work:
"I watched over the next years as the American media, overwhelmed by twenty-four-hour news, would increasingly rely in a crisis on the immediate claims of a White House and a politically compliant intelligence community. Skepticism, the instinct that drives much investigative reporting, would diminish even more after Barack Obama, full of hope and promise, took office in early 2009."
This quote was exactly the landscape around the invasion of Iraq in 2002. I wanted to see/read rigorous questioning of those in charge for what seemed like murder, vengeance and massive abuses of power - proof to back up all the official accusations - careful consideration of the massive slaughter.
Except for Hersh and Democracy Now, I couldn't find any good investigation or a remote desire to get to the truth of the matter, whatever it was, wherever it led.
The early 2000s. I was in my 20s and having one of those pivotal reassessments. I had to reorient as though i could feel the literal ground shift under my feet - what I'd been taught and felt sure i knew about America's goodness and promise and the murder and torture and lies i saw when i asked the questions i needed answered.
I know he's probably got massive faults and represents the good old boys club that i hope dies off and never returns, but he was a huge figure i saw with courage, integrity and answers at the time i was becoming more aware and processing things and needed someone out there to tell the truth.
Aside from that, it has those romantic old newsroom stories about cub reporters, teletype, running in the rain to get the story in, secret sources he convinces to talk, etc. My Lai, CIA involvement with Allende coup and tracking anti-war protesters to unpopular stories about US crimes in Iraq and elsewhere. He seems the last of a certain kind of reporter that holds power to account. I hope I'm wrong about that.
It ends with a chapter on the time period in which I became acquainted with his work:
"I watched over the next years as the American media, overwhelmed by twenty-four-hour news, would increasingly rely in a crisis on the immediate claims of a White House and a politically compliant intelligence community. Skepticism, the instinct that drives much investigative reporting, would diminish even more after Barack Obama, full of hope and promise, took office in early 2009."
This quote was exactly the landscape around the invasion of Iraq in 2002. I wanted to see/read rigorous questioning of those in charge for what seemed like murder, vengeance and massive abuses of power - proof to back up all the official accusations - careful consideration of the massive slaughter.
Except for Hersh and Democracy Now, I couldn't find any good investigation or a remote desire to get to the truth of the matter, whatever it was, wherever it led.
The early 2000s. I was in my 20s and having one of those pivotal reassessments. I had to reorient as though i could feel the literal ground shift under my feet - what I'd been taught and felt sure i knew about America's goodness and promise and the murder and torture and lies i saw when i asked the questions i needed answered.
I know he's probably got massive faults and represents the good old boys club that i hope dies off and never returns, but he was a huge figure i saw with courage, integrity and answers at the time i was becoming more aware and processing things and needed someone out there to tell the truth.