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" Usually when reporting on powerful public figures, the press advisor and I would have had a conversation that established what journalists call 'ground rules,' placing restrictions on what can and cannot be reported. "

Michael Hastings

Rules

Powerful

Conversation

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" I want to be the greatest investigative reporter of my generation. "

" I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising. "

Michael Hastings

Journalism

Advertising

" I've been in this business now for almost ten years. I've done a lot of stories. I have a pretty good track record. "

" Despite failing to get bin Laden, the U.S. government and media portrayed the early Afghanistan war as a great victory. "

" My younger brother is a decorated combat veteran and was a platoon leader in Iraq. "

" To General McChrystal, those men on his team are his family. You know, these guys, they would do anything. They would die for each other. "

" When writing for a mass audience, put a fact in every sentence. "

" Whenever you're reporting, there's always something you can't say or write, but the questions, you always want to get as close to that line as possible. You want to ask the tough questions. "

" Obama's drone program, in fact, amounts to the largest unmanned aerial offensive ever conducted in military history: never have so few killed so many by remote control. "

" There is not much of a bureaucratic leap, if history is any guide, between a seemingly benign call for 'continuous situational awareness' and the onset of a covert and illegal campaign of domestic surveillance. "

" The genius of David Petraeus has always been his masterful manipulation of the media. "

" I think it's very difficult to make people care about natives in another country. "

" In campaign reporting more than any other kind of press coverage, reporters aren't just covering a story, they're a part of it - influencing outcomes, setting expectations, framing candidates - and despite what they tell themselves, it's impossible to both be a part of the action and report on it objectively. "

" Andrew Warren was a rarity in the CIA's Clandestine Service - African-American, fluent in Arabic, and relatively young for an agent who'd already spent nearly a decade chasing terrorists in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq and Algeria, so deep undercover that few of his friends or family knew the nature of his work. "

" The night before I began my career as a presidential campaign reporter, in September 2007, I finished Theodore White's 'The Making of the President,' the classic account of the 1960 race, which opened up a new era of campaign reporting. "

" Obama's people will all often complain about how trivial and silly the media is, but there's no president who's probably benefited from this sort of trivialness or superficial nature as President Obama. "

" You basically have to be willing to devote your life to journalism if you want to break in. Treat it like it's medical school or law school. "

" It's never a good thing to see a government agency talk in secret about the need to 'control protestors' - especially when that agency is charged with protecting the homeland against terrorists, not nonviolent demonstrators exercising their First Amendment rights to peaceable dissent. "

" I welcome all interviews with 'Rolling Stone' magazine, and I'm sure people will talk to me in the future. "

Michael Hastings

Talk

People

" General McChrystal wanted to be on the cover of 'Rolling Stone.' "

" When interviewing for a job, tell the editor how you love to report. How your passion is gathering information. Do not mention how you want to be a writer, use the word 'prose,' or that deep down you have a sinking suspicion you are the next Norman Mailer. "

" General David Petraeus was so successful at getting on covers of magazines, having journalists fall in love with him, that in fact he was able to use that power to go around the normal chain of command. "

" During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the military conducted only a handful of drone missions. "

" As the CIA tried to find itself, the threat of international terrorism emanating from the Middle East, Africa, North Africa and Central and Southeast Asia grew with each strike: the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole. "

" By the second sentence of a pitch, the entirety of the story should be explained. "

" It was either write or die for me. "

Michael Hastings

Die

Write

" I think when war becomes your life, I think it's very difficult to have the proper perspective to be able to create a fully balanced policy. "

" In late 2009, I returned to Baghdad after a lengthy absence. I was living alone, in the Hamra Hotel, the twice bombed-out de facto international news bureau. "

" The first time I met President Obama was 2006 in Baghdad. He was the senator from Illinois; it was a month before he actually ended up declaring. He had to come to Baghdad to kind of check that box, and I was the correspondent for 'Newsweek' at the time. "

" Despite the absurdity and the silliness and the triviality of the entire campaign experience, there is also something, as non-cynical as this sounds, kind of uplifting and strange about watching democracy unfold. "