Buzzfeed hires Michael Hastings, author of explosive McChrystal profile, to cover Obama

Michael Hastings, the freelance writer and author whose explosive 2010 profile General Stanley McChrystal for Rolling Stone ("The Runaway General") sparked a firestorm of controversy and led to McChrystal's resignation, will join Buzzfeed to cover President Barack Obama's re-election campaign.

Hastings, who is moving from Vermont to New York for the job, will begin on April 2. The site combines curated links to viral content around the Web with a more recent emphasis on original reporting.

"I think it's really exciting what they're building," Hastings told Yahoo News. "I don't look at it as the Web--it's almost beyond the Web at this point."

Hastings--who covered the 2008 presidential campaign for Newsweek--will remain a contributing editor for Rolling Stone.

In an email to Yahoo News, Buzzfeed editor Ben Smith described Hastings as "a great, fair-minded, fearless reporter."

But will Hastings' controversial reporting on Obama's former top commander in Afghanistan make it harder for him to cover the administration? Hastings doesn't think so. "I'm just going to try to do the best reporting I can," he said.

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