.The journalist credited with bringing down U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal is joining the brave new world of #Fail, #LOL and #OMG. Quirky and intrepid social news site BuzzFeed announced its hiring of Michael Hastings Monday, a Rolling Stone contributing editor who also writes occasionally for GQ.
"Social publishing is the future of journalism, or at least huge part of its future. By joining BuzzFeed, I'll be at the front and center of that world," Hastings said in BuzzFeed press release. "It will give me the chance to be part of a media organization that's breaking new journalistic ground, finding innovative and fresh ways to report the story." According to the release, Hastings will be covering President Obama's re-election campaign from Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York and wherever the campaign trail takes him.
BuzzFeed has been on a hiring spree in recent months, bringing on Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan in late January and RollingStone.com's Doree Shafrir in the same month. They followed Politico reporter Ben Smith as editor-in-chief in December. (The hiring binge has even prompted its own Tumblr.) Smith, for his part, tweeted, "So excited I wrote a press release!"
Hastings certainly adds a distinctive bite to the BuzzFeed's roster, which combines cat photos and Web ephemera with genuine political scoops and reporting. For his bruising 2010 profile of McChrystal "The Runaway General," Hastings received the George Polk Award in journalism.