Seymour Hersh is famous for many things, but being an optimist is not one of them.
“This speech might be very bad for your morale,” said Hersh, a journalist whose name can be found in most history textbooks, of his upcoming engagement at Royce Hall on Thursday. “Don’t come expecting to be uplifted.”
Hersh, who will be kicking off the 2007-2008 UCLA Live’s Spoken Word Series, has never been afraid to expose harsh truths. The journalist holds a 1970 Pulitzer Prize for his exposure of the 1968 massacre of 350 Vietnamese by American soldiers in the village of My Lai.
His body of works has earned him the reputation as one of the hardest-working journalists in the business, and Hersh’s ground-breaking investigative reporting for both The New York Times and The New Yorker has shattered the way Americans view their leaders.
Shana Mathur, director of marketing and communications for UCLA Live, feels Hersh’s talk will inspire important conversations among attendants.
“He’s created and continuing part of a very important dialogue that’s going on right now ““ not just in the academic community, but beyond,” Mathur said.
At the upcoming event, Hersh will be discussing his seventh and latest book, “Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib and Beyond,” which deals with the topic of the George W. Bush administration. Put lightly, Hersh is not fond of Bush’s policies.
“The tragedy of dealing with this administration ““ for journalists anyway ““ is (Bush) doesn’t care,” he said. “He’s got his own agenda. It doesn’t matter what we say or write. That’s what’s scary.”
Hersh furthermore believes that American journalists failed in covering the events leading up to the Iraq war.
“I think we failed the American people in a very, very crucial way. We didn’t do our job. Our job is to be skeptical. Our job is to challenge the president at every moment, not to be part of the cheerleading team: “˜Let’s kill the Muslims!’ We weren’t that bad but we weren’t good.”
Yet despite his cynicism, if there’s one thing Hersh does have hope for, it’s for the students at colleges across the country.
“I think there’s something amazing going on with the students. Students want to hear stuff. I really think they care. It’s their country, and the young people understand that in 10 years they don’t want to be saddled with a crisis with the Muslims because of some mistake we’re making now,” Hersh said. “A lot of students care about the world, and I see that.”
And with the new generation, the medium of journalism itself has changed. Although Hersh has been one of the most effective print journalists over the last 40 years, the relatively recent advent of the Internet has challenged traditional reporting. In a world where bloggers can post news constantly and the output of print newspapers is diminishing, Hersh views these developments with mixed feelings.
“It’s a huge communication device, and I love that about it,” he said. “What I hate about it is that it’s so undisciplined that you don’t know what the hell’s going to happen today on the (Web).”
Hersh recognizes his lack of connection with the new world of Internet communication. He even admits that he sometimes requires the aid of his children when using a computer.
Hersh, however, is still blazing his own trail, exposing one scandal after another. His articles in The New Yorker on complicity in use of torture tactics in the Abu Ghraib prison are all part of what Hersh says is a pursuit to hold members of the Bush administration accountable for their actions.
“I always believe in holding public officials to the highest possible standard. That’s just what I do,” Hersh said. “It doesn’t matter to me whether somebody gets mad at me and I can’t sleep anymore (as long as) I tell the truth.”
Today, Hersh’s concern rests in the potential for the war to spread beyond Iraq’s borders.
“The thing that worries me the most is I don’t want to see America do some drawn out war with the Muslim world, and Bush is going that way,” he said. “That would be a huge mistake, and it’s a very frightening thing. I don’t want you guys to grow up in a world of $10-a-gallon oil.”
But despite his firm opinions, Hersh says his writings are not centered on personal ideology or complex schemes. He sees his role as a journalist as being closer to that of a dentist than that of a lobbyist or a politician.
“When I go to my dentist, I don’t hire a dentist because he’s a lefty or a righty. He’s good, that’s what matters. He’s not going to treat me because he’s politically happy with me any better than he’s going to treat anybody (else). We’re in the same business,” Hersh said. “Whatever I think personally about something is so unimportant to the real story. It’s what I write (that matters).”