Abstract
The power of the Fourth Estate has resided primarily in its ability to bring light to the darkest parts of humanity. Few journalists can claim to have done more to uncover mortifying secrets of depravity throughout the world than Seymour M. Hersh. In Reporter, the famed New Yorker and New York Times investigative reporter describes a life obsessed with finding, reporting and writing about heinous acts that people—especially those in powerful positions in government—have committed. Hersh describes his work as telling stories about “unwanted truths” (p. 4) of such affairs as Henry Kissinger’s time in the Nixon White House, torture and abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2000s and the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, for which he was award a Pulitzer Prize. This exposé of mass killings by American soldiers in Vietnam is perhaps one of the most well-known works of investigative journalism in the last century. Hersh’s focus in this book is primarily on his most prominent foreign affairs investigations, while dedicating as little of the book as possible—and expressing disinterest at several points—in American domestic politics.
Hersh’s workhorse nature is ever-present throughout. Absent are most matters of friends and family or of vacations and socialization. His life and experiences growing up in Chicago, Ill., that led to his first job in the newspaper industry get only about nine pages of text. His recollections of his time in the U.S. Army serve merely to explain how he was so well prepared to find Army Lt. William Calley during Hersh’s investigation of the My Lai Massacre. The passages about his time on Sen. Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 presidential campaign are treated as an interruption in Hersh’s path to his true calling: investigative reporting. Even Hersh’s marriage and family life have fleeting mentions throughout the chronological account of a lifetime of news work.
Yet these brief mentions are reflective of Hersh’s outlook on what is and is not the purview of a journalist. In one of several lengthy sections on Kissinger, Hersh writes that he learned that former President Richard Nixon physically abused former first lady Pat Nixon on at least three occasions. Hersh did not follow up on it or even tell the editors at The Washington Post—for which he was working at the time—about what he knew.
The issue was the merging of private life and personal life, and I explained [later during a talk at the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University] that I would have written about the attacks if they were an example of why his personal life impinges on policy, but there was no evidence of such a link. (p. 203).
While writing in this memoir that he now realizes he was wrong to ignore a former president committing a crime, Hersh considered those incidents at the time to be personal matters and not a topic of public concern.
Throughout the book are drips and drabs of what Hersh finds most critical to a sustained career in investigative reporting. In preparation for stories such as the Gulf & Western and My Lai massacre investigations, Hersh relied on extensive research so that he could be confident and knowledgeable going into an interview. During those interviews, he asked questions that showed he had done so. In a passage on his attempts to locate Calley, Hersh also describes how he carefully crafted questions for sources as to not divulge the truest intent. He writes “never begin an interview by asking core questions” (p. 108).
Without allies to serve as his editors, Hersh’s directness likely would not have survived navigating the politics of The New York Times newsroom. His efforts to develop and maintain (or destroy) relationships with editors were inextricably tied to his ability to publish some of his most important work. However, Hersh readily admits that this memoir is a story of a time in journalism now long gone where reporters with a hot lead and determination had the time and resources to chase it down. In reflecting on a lifetime of spending countless hours bringing the most immoral, corrupt, illegal and downright deadly acts into the light, he details international flights and spending weeks or months in hotel rooms just to locate a single source. The special confluence of Hersh’s skills as a reporter and the robust backing of well-financed legacy newsrooms allowed the stories Hersh uncovered to be reported.
With heavy description of the how and why he took the actions he did in gathering information for his stories, this memoir could serve in some ways as instruction for an aspiring investigative reporter seeking inspiration for what will likely be a lifetime of obfuscation and obstruction by powerful people. Yet, today’s reporters rarely find a news organization with enough patience and finances to let their staff spend months or years on a single story or series. As such, this memoir can more likely be only a reflection upon a time that has passed and not sage advice for the future.