Yesterday evening, I met up with some old and new journalist pals to see Seymour Hersh deliver the keynote address that kicked off this year’s Social Research Conference, themed “Limiting Knowledge in a Democracy.” It was quite a treat for me to see him speak, having admired this elder statesman of American reportage since my own very modest stint as a campus journalist in a fiercely idealistic college town several years ago.
The event was held in the auditorium that once housed the hearings of the 9/11 Commission — somewhat ironic in that the man who was now brought into speak was about to tear into the secretive and misleading security policies of past and present administrations. He was introduced to an audience that appeared to be more than familiar with his work by Morton Halperin, an a former policy expert who served under three different presidents and is presently a senior advisor at the Open Society Institute.
Hersh began without much in the way of a preamble and quickly launched into a discussion of his knowledge of the intelligence community and covert operations that are currently underway in the fronts against terrorism. He spoke animatedly, breezing through his subject matter at breakneck speed, pausing rarely. At times, Halperin, the seated “moderator” of the talk, looked somewhat bemused at the pace at which his old friend was proceeding.
The address continued as a casually informative, anecdotal view of the information barrier between government and public. In addition to his good-natured, mile-a-minute delivery, Hersh was charmingly cynical throughout his speech, in the way that his audience more or less expected him to be, given his particular career.
The only really disappointing aspect of the event was this Q&A session held after Hersh’s concluding remarks. (Actually, it was really only the “Q” part that irritated this audience member) Most of the question-askers seemed to be merely clamoring for the spotlight, but a few went beyond the bounds of acceptable public decorum. My favorite awkward moment occurred when a blogger from The Huffington Post — who was at first cheered by the crowd because of his press affiliation — was met with incredulous silence when he asked a bizarre, indecipherable question concerning the link between the “military-industrial complex” and the climate change debate. (To which Hersh of course responded, “Sorry, I’ve got nothing.”)
Though not much was stated that would have surprised any well-informed consumer of the news media, I was thoroughly contented simply to have seen this professional hero of mine speak.
