Interview · moment 17 of 23
Michael Hastings, WhoWhatWhy's Scoops, and Personal Risk
from Incompetence and Ruthlessness · #8
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
4 minGuest
Baker discusses concern for his own safety, why he built Who What Why to be reader-funded and resilient, and touts the outlet's early reporting on Michael Hastings' death, the FBI's prior relationships with the Boston Marathon and Orlando shooters.
- 47:18Built WhoWhatWhy.org to train investigative reporters and insulate them from corporate pressure or easy decapitation.
- 47:47Michael Hastings was most likely murdered, yet people are too apathetic to care about the evidence.
- 48:11WhoWhatWhy was first to investigate the FBI's prior relationships with the Boston Marathon bombers, Orlando shooter, and others.
- 48:36Hastings had angered the military and had FBI and CIA angles to his death—could have been any of them, like Kennedy.
- 49:20Authorities solved the Boston Marathon bombing impossibly fast, which always makes him want to investigate further.
- 49:42The official account looked too neat and unverified; echoes the exact pattern used 50 years earlier with Lee Harvey Oswald.
- 49:55Both Tsarnaev and Oswald had been to Russia and had family members connected to intelligence.
- 50:16Attempting to contact the Tsarnaev family leads to trouble; there's a real clampdown on that subject.
- 50:27Whatever happened at Boston Marathon is so problematic for the state that tremendous resources went into ensuring nobody ever figures it out.
who what whyMichael HastingsBoston Marathon bombingLee Harvey OswaldTsarnaev