B.A. in Humanities with a Concentration in Media Studies
Alumnus, Class of 2002
Michael Hastings took his first steps toward becoming a journalist while earning a B.A. in Humanities as a student in the McGhee Division. An internship at Newsweek during his senior year in 2002 led to a full-time position at the magazine, where he worked as an Iraq War correspondent until 2008.
He later became a regular contributor to Gentleman’s Quarterly. But it was his work as a contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine that propelled him into the spotlight. His article "The Runaway General," published in June 2010, was so explosive that it prompted President Obama to dismiss U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal as commander of all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. His incredible investigative journalism won him the prestigious George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting from Long Island University.
Now a freelance journalist, Hastings also is the author of I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story, about the death of his fiancée in Iraq.