BuzzFeed reporter Michael Hastings died Tuesday morning in Los Angeles. He was 33.
BuzzFeed reported in a statement that Hastings was killed in a car accident. Media reports indicate that the accident took place on the 600 block of North Highland Ave. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene of that crash.
LAPD could not confirm to TheWrap that this was Hastings, but the Los Angeles Times reported that the Highland Avenue accident was the only vehicle fatality in Los Angeles that morning.
Hastings covered politics and war for BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone.
Early this year, Hastings wrote an ebook about his experience covering the 2012 presidential election for BuzzFeed. In 2010, he wrote The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan, based on his time embedded with General Stanley McChrystal for a George Polk Award-winning Rolling Stone article.
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Hastings' first book, I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story recounted his work for Newsweek covering the Iraq war and the death of his fiancee in a terror attack there.
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Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana said of his late contributing editor: "I'm sad that I'll never get to publish all the great stories that he was going to write, and sad that he won't be stopping by my office for any more short visits which would stretch for two or three completely engrossing hours. He will be missed."
BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith said the site was "shocked and devastated" by Hastings' death, remembering him as "great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story."
Hastings also wrote for Newsweek and GQ. He leaves behind his wife, writer Elise Jordan.