The You of My Song: Notes from a Voluntary Exile

I want to mention another honest, independent journalist, one whom some consider to be the finest investigative reporter of our time, and point you to a revealing video interview where you can very quickly take the measure of the man. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million. Pulitzer Prize winner, Seymour Hersh, contributes regularly to The New Yorker these days, but he has been researching and writing his muckraking books and articles for more than 30 years. Hersh was the reporter who, as a 30-year-old freelancer, uncovered the Mai Lai massacre and the ensuing Nixon-administration cover up in 1969. It was also Hersh who exposed the mistreatment of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in 2004. His most recent work deals with the Bush administration’s plans to bomb Iran using nuclear weapons, a revelation which he first published in 2006.

The secret of Hersh’s success lies in his dense network of high-level sources, not only in the United States government, but in foreign governments and international agencies. His long history of documenting and publishing high-level cases of abuse has made him the most sought-after reporter in the business for anyone with a big-time scandal to air. Any civil servant or military person who is outraged by his or her employer’s abuses or conspiracies and wants them made public always knows whom to turn to: Sy Hersh.

This is a video of Hersh being interviewed by The New Yorker’s editor, David Remnick. He talks about his ongoing investigation of the Bush administration’s plans for bombing Iran. Hersh’s remarks, based on contacts with high-level informants are both fascinating and blood chilling.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/festival/2007/HershRemnick

You can find a lot of other Seymour Hersh talkies on YouTube.com. I found them all fascinating, and think you will, too.

That’s all for now. Have a good weekend. See you next week.