Chris Hedges The New York Times What is the New York Times? Hedges worked for 15 years as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. What else can you tell me about it? He was based in the Middle East for five years, serving for four of those years as the Middle East bureau chief. Why did he only work for 15 years? I don't know.
Did he work anywhere else?
Did Chris Hedges work anywhere other than The New York Times?
Hedges worked for 15 years as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He was based in the Middle East for five years, serving for four of those years as the Middle East bureau chief. He covered the war in the former Yugoslavia as the Balkan bureau chief based in Sarajevo. He later covered Al Qaeda in Europe and the Middle East from Paris.  Three of Hedges' articles were based upon the stories of Iraqi defectors, who had been furnished to Hedges by the Information Collection Program of the US-funded Iraqi National Congress. The program promoted stories to major media outlets in order to orchestrate US intervention in Iraq in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Most significant of his reports in this period was a November 8, 2001, front-page story about two former Iraqi military commanders who claimed to have trained foreign mujahedeen how to hijack planes without using guns. Hedges quoted a man whom he believed to be an Iraqi general: "These Islamic radicals ... came from a variety of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco. We were training these people to attack installations important to the United States". The two defectors also asserted there was a secret compound in Salman Pak facility where a German scientist was producing biological weapons.  According to Mother Jones: "The impact of the article ... was immediate: Op-eds ran in major papers, and the story was taken to a wider audience through cable-TV talk shows. When Condoleezza Rice, then George W. Bush's national security adviser, was asked about the report at a press briefing, she said, 'I think it surprises no one that Saddam Hussein is engaged in all kinds of activities that are destabilizing.'" As late as 2006, conservative magazines including The Weekly Standard and National Review continued to use this article to justify the invasion of Iraq.  It later was revealed that the story which Hedges reported was "an elaborate scam". The defector whom Hedges quoted, who had identified himself as Lt. General Jamal al-Ghurairy, was a former sergeant. The real Ghurairy had never left Iraq. Hedges said that he had taken on reporting this account at the request of Lowell Bergman of Frontline, who wanted the defectors for his show but could not go to Beirut for the interview. The trip had been organized by Ahmed Chalabi, whom Hedges considered to be unreliable. Hedges said he had done the piece as a favor to Bergman, explaining, "There has to be a level of trust between reporters. We cover each other's sources when it's a good story because otherwise everyone would get hold of it." Hedges had relied on the US embassy in Turkey for further confirmation of the man's identity.  Hedges wrote two more articles that year that were informed by Chalabi-coached defectors. The second one, claiming that Iraq still held 80 Kuwaitis captured in the 1991 Gulf War in a secret underground prison, was also found to be baseless. CANNOTANSWER
CANNOTANSWER
Christopher Lynn Hedges (born September 18, 1956) is an American journalist, Presbyterian minister, author and television host. A former reporter for The New York Times, Hedges has pursued work and activism related to covering his perspectives on political violence and critical views on American liberalism.

In his early career, Hedges worked as a freelance war correspondent in Central America for The Christian Science Monitor, NPR, and Dallas Morning News. Hedges began working for The New York Times in 1990. During his fifteen year tenure, Hedges reported from more than fifty countries and served as the Times Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief during the wars in the former Yugoslavia.

In 2001, Hedges contributed to The New York Times staff entry that received the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for the paper's coverage of global terrorism. He also received the Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism in 2002. Hedges left the Times in 2005 after an internal dispute over his public opposition to the Iraq War.

Hedges produced a weekly column for Truthdig for 14 years until the outlet's unexpected hiatus in 2020. Hedges' books include War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction; American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (2007); Death of the Liberal Class (2010); and Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (2012), written with cartoonist Joe Sacco.

Hedges has taught at Columbia University, New York University, the University of Toronto and Princeton University. He has taught college credit writing courses in New Jersey prisons as part of the B.A. program offered by Rutgers University.

Hedges hosts the Emmy-nominated program On Contact for the RT (formerly Russia Today) television network. Hedges has described himself as a socialist and an anarchist, identifying with Dorothy Day in particular.

Early life
Christopher Lynn Hedges was born on September 18, 1956 in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. His father was a World War II veteran, Presbyterian minister, and anti-war activist. He grew up in rural Schoharie County, New York, southwest of Albany.

Education 
Hedges received a scholarship to attend Loomis Chaffee School, a private boarding school in Windsor, Connecticut. Hedges founded an underground newspaper at the school that was banned by the administration and resulted in his being put on probation. He graduated in 1975.

Hedges enrolled into Colgate University and, though heterosexual, helped found an LGBT student group. Hedges received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Colgate in 1979. He received a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard University's Divinity School (where he studied under James Luther Adams) in 1983. Hedges lived in Roxbury, a blighted inner city neighborhood in Boston, as a seminarian and ran a small church. He was also a member of the Greater Boston YMCA's boxing team, writing that the boxing gym was "the only place I felt safe." He studied Latin and Classical Greek at Harvard.

Early career 
Hedges began his career as a freelance journalist in Latin America. He wrote for several publications, including The Washington Post, and covered the Falklands War from Buenos Aires for National Public Radio. From 1983 to 1984, he covered the conflicts in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala for The Christian Science Monitor and NPR. He was hired as the Central America Bureau Chief for The Dallas Morning News in 1984 and held this position until 1988. Noam Chomsky wrote of Hedges at the time that he was one of the "few US journalists in Central America who merit the title."

Hedges took a sabbatical to study Arabic in 1988. He was appointed the Middle East Bureau Chief for The Dallas Morning News in 1989. In one of his first stories for the paper he tracked down Robert Manning, the prime suspect in the 1985 bombing death in California of Alex Odeh, head of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s Western office, in the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Before Hedges discovered Manning, Israel claimed it had no knowledge of Manning’s whereabouts. Manning, linked to the militant Jewish Defense League and allegedly behind several murders, was extradited to the United States in 1991 where he is serving a life sentence for a separate bombing incident.

The New York Times
In 1990, Hedges was hired by The New York Times. He covered the first Gulf War for the paper, where he refused to participate in the military pool system that restricted the movement and reporting of journalists. He was arrested by the United States Army and had his press credentials revoked, but continued to defy the military restrictions to report outside the pool system. Hedges subsequently entered Kuwait with U.S. Marine Corps members who were distrustful of the Army's press control. Within The New York Times, R.W. Apple Jr. supported Hedges' defiance of the pool system.

Hedges was taken prisoner in Basra after the war by the Iraqi Republican Guard during the Shiite uprising. He was freed after a week. Hedges was appointed the paper’s Middle East Bureau Chief in 1991. His reporting on the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein in the Kurdish-held parts of northern Iraq saw the Iraqi leader offer a bounty for anyone who killed Hedges, along with other western journalists and aid workers in the region. Several aid workers and journalists, including the German reporter Lissy Schmidt, were assassinated and others were severely wounded.

Yugoslav Wars (1995–2000) 
In 1995, Hedges was named the Balkan Bureau Chief for The New York Times. He was based in Sarajevo when the city was being hit by over 300 shells a day by the surrounding Bosnia Serbs. He reported on the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995 and shortly after the war uncovered what appeared to be one of  the central collection points and hiding places for perhaps thousands of corpses at the large open pit Ljubija mine during the Bosnian Serbs' ethnic cleansing campaign. He and the photographer Wade Goddard were the first reporters to travel with armed units of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in Kosovo. Hedges investigative piece was published in The New York Times in June 1999 detailing how Hashim Thaçi, leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (and later president of Kosovo), directed a campaign in which as many as half a dozen top rebel commanders were assassinated and many others were brutally purged to consolidate his power. Thaci, indicted by the special court in The Hague on 10 counts of war crimes, is in detention in The Hague awaiting trial.

Hedges was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University during the 1998–1999 academic year.

Hedges ended his career of reporting in active conflicts in October 2000, partly due to trauma sustained from witnessing the death of a juvenile boy in Kosovo during a firefight.

Terrorism coverage and Iraq War (2001–2005) 
Hedges was based in Paris following the attacks of 9/11, covering Al Qaeda in Europe and the Middle East. He was a part of an investigative team in The New York Times that won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting in 2002 for their coverage of Al Qaeda. Hedges' contribution was an October 2001 article describing Al Qaeda's foiled bombing plot of the Embassy of the United States, Paris. Most of the awarded reporting was done by Judith Miller, who was later disgraced due to her work that falsely connected the operations of Al Qaeda to the Republic of Iraq led by Saddam Hussein. Many Times editors pushed to utilize dubious American intelligence reports that gave misleading or fabricated details around an alleged Iraqi connection to international terror.

Reporting from coached defectors 

In a collaboration between The New York Times and Frontline, Hedges authored three articles covering the claims of false Iraqi defectors. Hedges worked on the behalf of Lowell Bergman of Frontline, who could not travel to Beirut to interview the purported defectors. The trip was organized by Ahmed Chalabi, who Hedges considered to be unreliable. The first defector Hedges interviewed identified themselves as Lt. General Jamal al-Ghurairy. Hedges consulted the U.S. Embassy in Turkey to confirm their identity, and the embassy falsely did so as the real al-Ghurairy had never left Iraq.

Hedges wrote a November 8, 2001 Times cover story about two former Iraqi military commanders who claimed to have trained foreign mujahedeen how to hijack planes and destroy vital American infrastructure. The two defectors also asserted there was a secret compound in Salman Pak facility where a German scientist was producing biological weapons. The Frontline report featured statements from American officials who doubted the claims of the defectors.

According to Jack Fairweather in Mother Jones: "The impact of the article ... was immediate: Op-eds ran in major papers, and the story was taken to a wider audience through cable-TV talk shows. When Condoleezza Rice, then President George W. Bush's national security adviser, was asked about the report at a press briefing, she said, 'I think it surprises no one that Saddam Hussein is engaged in all kinds of activities that are destabilizing. As late as 2006, according to Fairweather in the same article, conservative magazines including The Weekly Standard and National Review continued to use this article to justify the invasion of Iraq.

In the aftermath of the revelations that the Iraqi defectors were not legitimate, Hedges defended his comportment since he had done the story as a favor to Lowell Bergman, adding that "There has to be a level of trust between reporters. We cover each other's sources when it's a good story because otherwise everyone would get hold of it."

Exit from the Times 
In 2003, Hedges was reprimanded by The New York Times for his opposition to U.S. involvement in the Iraq War because of perceived challenges to partiality. This was a motivating factor for his resignation from the Times in 2005.

Later career

In 2005, Hedges left The New York Times to become a senior fellow at Type Media Center, and a columnist at Truthdig, in addition to writing books and teaching inmates at a New Jersey correctional institution. 

Obey, a 2013 documentary by British filmmaker Temujin Doran, is based on Hedges' book Death of the Liberal Class.

Truthdig (2006–2020) 
Hedges produced a weekly column in Truthdig for 14 years. He was fired along with all of the editorial staff in March 2020. Hedges and the staff had gone on strike earlier in the month to protest the publisher's attempt to fire the Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer, demand an end to a series of unfair labor practices and the right to form a union. Hedges has since been a writer for Scheerpost.

Citation error controversy

In June 2014, Christopher Ketcham published an article on The New Republic website accusing Hedges of improper citations, alleging the offenses constituted plagiarism. In response, some formatting and reference errors were corrected on the website for Truthdig. Additional accusations of plagiarism from Ketcham were countered by an independent investigation from the Type Media Center.

The Washington Free Beacon reported that a spokesperson for The New York Times said it "did not have reason to believe Hedges plagiarized in his work for the paper" and had no plans to investigate Hedges for plagiarism.

Prison writing teacher 
Hedges has worked for a decade teaching writing classes in prisons in New Jersey through a program offered by Princeton University and later Rutgers University. A class that Hedges taught at East Jersey State Prison in 2013 went on to collaborate in the creation of a play titled Caged. Hedges has become a fierce critic of mass incarceration in the United States, and his experience as an educator in New Jersey prisons served as inspiration for his 2021 book Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison.

Ordination and ministerial installation

On October 5, 2014, Hedges was ordained a minister within the Presbyterian Church. He was installed as Associate Pastor and Minister of Social Witness and Prison Ministry at the Second Presbyterian Church Elizabeth in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He mentioned being rejected for ordination 30 years earlier, saying that "going to El Salvador as a reporter was not something the Presbyterian Church at the time recognized as a valid ministry, and a committee rejected my 'call.

Political views

Economic views 
Hedges contended at the Left Forum in 2015 that with the "denouement of capitalism and the disintegration of globalism", Karl Marx has been "vindicated as capitalism's most prescient and important critic". He said that Marx "foresaw that capitalism had built within it the seeds of its own destruction. He knew that reigning ideologies—think neoliberalism—were created to serve the interests of the elites and in particular the economic elites."

Environmental views 
In a March 2009 column, Hedges warned that human over-population and mass species extinction are serious problems, and that any measures to save the ecosystem will be futile unless we cut population growth, and noted that, "As long as the Earth is viewed as the personal property of the human race, a belief embraced by everyone from born-again Christians to Marxists to free-market economists, we are destined to soon inhabit a biological wasteland."

On September 20, 2014, a day before the People's Climate March, Hedges joined Bernie Sanders, Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, and Kshama Sawant on a panel moderated by WNYC's Brian Lehrer to discuss the issue of climate change. Hedges and Klein also participated in the 'Flood Wall Street' protests that occurred shortly thereafter.

Hedges' environmental concerns were his primary motivation to be vegan. Hedges authored an introduction to a vegan cookbook in 2015.

Other views 
In March 2008, Hedges published the book titled I Don't Believe in Atheists, in which he argues that new atheism presents a danger that is similar to religious extremism.

In a December 2014 TruthDig column, Hedges compared the ethnic cleansing of ISIS to the actions of Israel's founding fathers in the late 1940s.

Hedges has repudiated the view that the Founding Fathers of the United States represented a legitimate form of democracy, writing that they rigged America's electoral process to thwart direct democracy and to protect the property rights of the aristocracy. He has written that the Electoral College has served to disenfranchise women, Native Americans, African Americans, and men who do not own property. He has praised abolitionists, labor organizers, women's suffragists, civil rights protestors, and anti-war activists for bringing some change to the structure of the U.S. government.

Hedges told Julian Casablancas, the lead singer for The Strokes who interviewed him for Rolling Stone on December 23, 2020, that one of the few events worth celebrating in American history took place on June 25, 1876 when Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho, led by Crazy Horse and Chief Gall, annihilated the 7th Cavalry under the command of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer.

Activism

Anti-war activism 
Hedges was an early critic of the Iraq War. In May 2003, he delivered a commencement address at Rockford College in Rockford, Illinois, saying: "We are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige and power and security." His speech was received with boos, "two students approached the stage to push [him] off the podium" (as he told an interviewer), and his microphone was shut off three minutes after he began speaking. Hedges had to end the commencement speech short because of the various student disruptions.
The New York Times, his employer, criticized his statements and issued him a formal reprimand for "public remarks that could undermine public trust in the paper's impartiality".

On December 16, 2010, he was arrested outside the White House along with Daniel Ellsberg and more than 100 activists who were protesting the war in Afghanistan.

In a piece published in Salon Magazine in March 2022, Hedges argued that NATO was at fault for Russia's invasion of Ukraine:The European Union has allocated hundreds of millions of euros to purchase weapons for Ukraine. Germany will almost triple its own defense budget for 2022. The Biden administration has asked Congress to provide $6.4 billion in funding to assist Ukraine, supplementing the $650 million in military aid to Ukraine over the past year. The permanent war economy operates outside the laws of supply and demand. It is the root of the two-decade-long quagmire in the Middle East. It is the root of the conflict with Moscow.

Occupy involvement 
Hedges appeared as a guest on an October 2011 episode of the CBC News Network's Lang and O'Leary Exchange to discuss his support for the Occupy Wall Street protests; co-host Kevin O'Leary criticized him, saying that he sounded "like a left-wing nutbar". Hedges said "it will be the last time" he appears on the show, and compared the CBC to Fox News. CBC's ombudsman found O'Leary's heated remarks to be a violation of the public broadcaster's journalistic standards.

On November 3, 2011, Hedges was arrested with others in New York as part of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration, during which the activists staged a "people's hearing" on the activities of the investment bank Goldman Sachs and blocked the entrance to their corporate headquarters.

NDAA lawsuit 

In 2012, after the Obama administration signed the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, Hedges sued members of the U.S. government, asserting that section 1021 of the law unconstitutionally allowed presidential authority for indefinite detention without habeas corpus. He was later joined in the suit, Hedges v. Obama, by activists including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg. In May 2012 Judge Katherine B. Forrest of the Southern District of New York ruled that the counter-terrorism provision of the NDAA is unconstitutional. The Obama administration appealed the decision and it was overturned in July 2013 by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Hedges petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, but the Supreme Court denied certiorari in April 2014.

Other activism 
In the 2008 United States presidential campaign, Hedges was a speech writer for candidate Ralph Nader.

On April 15, 2016, Hedges was arrested, along with 100 other protesters, during a sit-in outside the Capitol building in Washington D.C. during Democracy Spring to protest the capture of the political system by corporations.

On May 27, 2020, Hedges announced that he would run as a Green Party candidate in New Jersey's 12th congressional district for the 2020 elections. However, he was informed the following day that running for office would conflict with FCC fairness doctrine rules because he was at that time hosting the nationally broadcast RT America television show On Contact. Hedges decided not to pursue office in order to keep hosting the show.

In September 2020, Chris Hedges spoke at the Movement for a People's Party convention.

Personal life
Hedges is married to the Canadian actress Eunice Wong. The couple have two children. Hedges also has two children from a previous marriage. He currently lives in Princeton, New Jersey. On November 11, 2014, Hedges announced that he and his family had become vegan. Hedges compared his decision to a vow of abstinence, adding that it is necessary "to make radical changes to save ourselves from ecological meltdown."

Hedges has post-traumatic stress disorder from his experience reporting in war zones.

Hedges studied Latin and Ancient Greek at Harvard, and speaks Arabic, French, and Spanish in addition to his native English.

Books
 2002: War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning ()
 2003: What Every Person Should Know About War ()
 2005: Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America ()
 2007: American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America ()
 2008: I Don't Believe in Atheists ()
 2008: Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians, with Laila Al-Arian ()
 2009: When Atheism Becomes Religion: America's New Fundamentalists, (), a retitled edition of I Don't Believe in Atheists
 2009: Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle ()
 2010: Death of the Liberal Class ()
 2010: The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress ()
 2012: Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, with Joe Sacco ()
 2015: Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt ()
 2016: Unspeakable ()
 2018: America: The Farewell Tour ()
 2021 Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison ()

See also

 Christian left
 Sacrifice zone

References

External links 

 APB Speakers Bureau Chris Hedges
 
 
 "Capitalism's 'Sacrifice Zones Bill Moyers talks with Chris Hedges, and comic-journalist Joe Sacco talking about their collaboration and showing drawings for their book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, July 20, 2012. Retrieved July 30, 2012
 Columns by Chris Hedges at Truthdig
 What Every Person Should Know About War, first chapter at The New York Times
 Chris Hedges at Scheerpost.

1956 births
Living people
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American anarchists
American anti-capitalists
American anti-fascists
American Christian socialists
American foreign policy writers
American male non-fiction writers
American political writers
American Presbyterians
American reporters and correspondents
American socialists
American war correspondents
Anarchist writers
Anti-consumerists
Anti-corporate activists
Christian anarchists
The Christian Science Monitor people
Colgate University alumni
Columbia University faculty
Critics of atheism
The Dallas Morning News people
Harvard Divinity School alumni
Loomis Chaffee School alumni
The Nation (U.S. magazine) people
The New York Times writers
Nieman Fellows
PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award winners
People from Schoharie, New York
People from St. Johnsbury, Vermont
Presbyterian socialists
RT (TV network) people
War correspondents of the Iraq War
War correspondents of the Yugoslav Wars
Writers about religion and science
The Homeless Gospel Choir, also known as Derek Zanetti, is a folk-punk musician from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is signed to A-F Records and has released five albums to date. His debut album, "Some People Never Go Anywhere," was released in 2010, "You Work So Hard to Be Like Everyone Else," in 2011, Luxury Problems, his third was released in 2012; and his fourth album, I Used To Be So Young, which was released in 2014, contains his hit song, "Untitled". Most of his songs revolve around the topics of politics and mental health.

Discography
Some People Never Go Anywhere (2010)
You Work So Hard Just to Be Like Everyone Else (2011)
Luxury Problems (2012)
I Used To Be So Young (2014)
Normal (2017)
This Land Is Your Landfill (2020)

References

External links 
 Website of The Homeless Gospel Choir
I Used to Be So Young Review, Punknews.org
The Homeless Gospel Choir – ‘I Used To Be So Young’ album stream, Alternative Press
Presents: Normal Review, Hectic Eclectic Music Reviews

Musicians from Pittsburgh
Living people
Folk punk musicians
Year of birth missing (living people) {{Orphan|date=May 2016}

Roald Charlsovich Mandelstam (; September 16, 1932, Leningrad - February 26, 1961, Leningrad) was a Russian poet.

Biography 
Born in Leningrad, September 16, 1932.

He studied at the Polytechnic Institute, then at the Faculty of Oriental Studies Saint Petersburg State University. He did not finish his education; because of the severe form of tuberculosis he could not work anywhere else and almost never left the house.

In 1954 he married the poet Nina Markevich (1931-1992).

Repeatedly he tried to publish his poems, but had his lifetime publications.

In the late 1950s he experienced persistent acute illness, repeatedly lying in the hospital.

On January 26, 1961 he died in the hospital from a hemorrhage and was buried in the Krasnenkoye Cemetery in Leningrad.

Bibliography

References

External links
 Выставка Г.А.В. Траугот – Роальд Мандельштам 
 Поэзия Роальда Мандельштама

1932 births
1961 deaths
Russian-language poets
Soviet male poets
Soviet male writers
20th-century Russian male writers
20th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis deaths in the Soviet Union
Tuberculosis deaths in Russia