Michael Hastings Dead: Buzzfeed Journalist Dies In Los Angeles Car Crash

Buzzfeed reported Michael Hastings was killed in a car crash in Los Angeles earlier Tuesday. He was 33. The reporter is best known for his scathing profile on U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal entitled "The Runaway General" published in Rolling Stone. The article later led to McChrystal's resignation.

"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," Buzzfeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith said in a statement.

Hastings was a contributing editor for Rolling Stone, joining the Buzzfeed in February, the New York Observer reported. Hastings was also known for his extensive coverage of President Barack Obama's 2012 presidental campaign. He later published his work as an e-book called "Panic 2012: The Sublime and Terrifying Inside Story of Obama's Final Campaign."

Hastings covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, working for GQ and Newsweek, Slate reported. He became a contributor-at-large specifically for Buzzfeed's Los Angeles branch in October.

"He wrote stories that would otherwise have gone unwritten, and without him there are great stories that will go untold," Smith's statement read.