Hastings book mocks ed egos
A book from beyond the grave, “The Last Magazine,” is haunting Newsweek editors — who will recognize themselves as thinly veiled characters.
The manuscript was discovered in the files of reporter Michael Hastings after he died a year ago in a Los Angeles car crash, a tragedy that has sparked conspiracy theories.
Hastings, just 33 at the time of his death, is the reporter who destroyed the career of
Gen. Stanley McChrystal in 2010, penning a Rolling Stone profile that quoted the general and his staff mocking civilian government officials, including Vice President Joe Biden.
Hastings told pals he was on the verge of breaking a big scoop before his crash. Former colleagues at Newsweek, where Hastings began his journalistic career, will recognize the book’s supersmooth international editor Nishant Patel as Fareed
Zakaria (inset) and neocon managing editor Sanders Berman as Jon Meacham.
The roman à clef chronicles how the two egotistical editors jockeyed for power while promoting themselves.
As a Hastings colleague told me, “Fareed was doing his TV show and Meacham was doing books while Newsweek was going down the drain.”
Zakaria had no comment, and Meacham couldn’t be reached.
But reporter Adam Piore fully embraces the idea that he is the basis for main character A.E. Peoria.
“I was slightly unhinged back when I worked alongside Mike — drinking, sneaking naps under my desk and revealing way too much information about my personal life to anyone who would listen,” Piore wrote on Slate.
“(Mike writes in the book that Peoria had a psychological condition called ‘ CDD,’ or compulsive disclosure disorder.) I didn’t think anyone was paying attention. But apparently Mike was taking notes.”