Journalist Michael Hastings Dies In Car Crash At Age 33

Journalist Michael Hastings has died as the result of injuries suffered in a car crash Tuesday, BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith announced. He was 33 years old.

In an official statement, Smith said, "We are shocked and devastated by the news that Michael Hastings is gone. Michael was a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered from wars to politicians. He wrote stories that would otherwise have gone unwritten, and without him there are great stories that will go untold. Michael was also a wonderful, generous colleague and a joy to work with. Our thoughts are with Elise and and the rest of his family and we are going to miss him."

According to The Huffington Post, Hastings joined BuzzFeed in April 2012 to work on the presidential election.

Prior to his time at BuzzFeed, Hastings worked for Rolling Stone, where he was best known to readers for his July 2010 article which resulted in the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal from his position as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Hastings also previously worked for Newsweek and was noted for his thorough coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2012, he published a New York Times bestselling book, “The Operators,” which goes into more detail about his experiences with McChrystal in Afghanistan. Hastings also published another book, "I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story," about the death of his fiance Andrea Parhamovich in the Iraqi capital.

This past November, Hastings made a fiery appearence on CNN's "Piers Morgan Live," taking both the network itself and the media at large to task for their portrayal of Gen. David Petraeus with regard to his professional career and his personal sins, which ultimately resulted in his resignation. Watch the clip below.