Chris Hedges is surprisingly cheery for someone who has, by his own admission, “a dark view of human nature.” When we met for this conversation at Substack’s office in San Francisco, he was full of smiles and good humor—at least during the times we weren’t discussing death and destruction. He had just come from the gym, a habit that borders on a fixation for him, since he works out as a way to deal with the trauma from years of covering war in some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones: the former Yugoslavia, El Salvador, and Iraq, to name a few.
It has been 20 years since his groundbreaking book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning came out. Its force was so powerful that it was quoted at the start of Kathryn Bigelow’s 2008 film The Hurt Locker: “The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” At the time, Chris was a bureau chief for the New York Times, covering the Middle East and the Balkans, but he quit that position following criticism of a speech he gave denouncing the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He has been publishing in independent media ever since, first at Truthdig and later with an interview show, On Contact, on Russia Today (RT). YouTube wiped out the archives to that show when it removed RT from the platform following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “They’re embracing censorship, let’s be clear,” Chris says.
In this conversation, we talk about why journalists like him keep getting drawn to war despite its dangers, why he sides with the suffering (including in his side role as a Presbyterian minister), and what he thinks is wrong with today’s media.Chris recommends this post from Jonathan Cook’s newsletter.
Show notes
* Subscribe to The Chris Hedges Report on Substack
* Find Chris Hedges on Twitter (as explained in the episode, not run by him)
* War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
* Other writers on Substack Chris recommends: Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Paul Street, Jonathan Cook
* The Catullus poem Chris quotes
* Eunice Wong’s website
* [02:05] Navigating war zones (and avoiding being killed)
* [04:43] Being taken prisoner in Basra
* [5:55] The mental stability of a war correspondent
* [06:51] How Chris got into war reporting
* [08:40] “You don’t stay lucky forever”
* [09:09] Becoming a recluse
* [15:19] Writing a memoir
* [21:03] The Presbyterian minister
* [22:33] The ordination to journalism
* [25:47] The state of today’s journalism
* [31:33] Why social media sound bites are “world without context”
* [33:27] The problem with independent media
* [34:06] Mainstream media and WikiLeaks
* [36:37] What has happened to our institutions
* [37:03] Is there hope?
* [40:40] Meeting his wife, Eunice Wong
The Active Voice is a podcast hosted by Hamish McKenzie, featuring weekly conversations with writers about how the internet is affecting the way they live and write. It is produced by Hanne Winarsky, with audio engineering by Seven Morris, content production by Hannah Ray, and production support from Bailey Richardson. All artwork is by Joro Chen, and music is by Phelps & Munro.
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