Discover the Best Books Written by Chris Hedges

Christopher Lynn Hedges is an American journalist, Presbyterian minister, author, and commentator. Hedges was born on September 18, 1956, in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. His father was a World War II veteran, Presbyterian minister, and anti-war activist. He was raised in rural Schoharie County, New York, southwest of Albany.

In his early career, Hedges worked as a freelance war correspondent in Central America for The Christian Science Monitor, NPR, and Dallas Morning News. Hedges reported for The New York Times from 1990 to 2005 and served as the Times Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief during the wars in the former Yugoslavia. In 2001, Hedges contributed to The New York Times staff entry that received the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for the paper's coverage of global terrorism.

Hedges produced a weekly column for Truthdig for 14 years until the outlet's hiatus in 2020. His books include War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction; American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America; Death of the Liberal Class; and Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt written with cartoonist Joe Sacco. In addition, hedges hosted On Contact for R.T. America from 2016 to 2022.

In 1990, Hedges was hired by The New York Times. He covered the first Gulf War for the paper, where he refused to participate in the military pool system that restricted the movement and reporting of journalists. He was arrested by the United States Army and revoked his press credentials, but he continued defying the military restrictions to report outside the pool system. Hedges subsequently entered Kuwait with U.S. Marine Corps members who distrusted the Army's press control. Within The New York Times, R.W. Apple Jr. supported Hedges' defiance of the pool system.

Hedges and Neal Conan were taken prisoner in Basra after the War by the Iraqi Republican Guard during the Shiite uprising. He was freed after a week. Hedges was appointed the paper's Middle East Bureau Chief in 1991. His reporting on the atrocities of Saddam Hussein in the Kurdish-held parts of northern Iraq saw the Iraqi leader offer a bounty for anyone who killed Hedges, along with other western journalists and aid workers in the region. As a result, several aid workers and journalists, including the German reporter Lissy Schmidt, was assassinated, and others were severely wounded.

In 1995, Hedges was named the Balkan Bureau Chief for The New York Times. He was based in Sarajevo when the city was hit by over 300 shells a day by the surrounding Bosnia Serbs. He reported on the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995 and, shortly after the War, uncovered what appeared to be one of the central collection points and hiding places for perhaps thousands of corpses at the large open pit Ljubija mine during the Bosnian Serbs' ethnic cleansing campaign. In addition, he and the photographer Wade Goddard were the first reporters to travel with armed units of the Kosovo Liberation Army in Kosovo.

Hedges' investigative piece was published in The New York Times in June 1999, detailing how Hashim Thaçi, leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (and later president of Kosovo), directed a campaign in which as many as half a dozen top rebel commanders were assassinated, and many others were brutally purged to consolidate his power. Thaci, indicted by the special court in The Hague on ten counts of war crimes, is in detention in The Hague awaiting trial.

Hedges was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University during the 1998–1999 academic year and chose to study Latin because of his prior interest in the classics from studying Classical Greek. Hedges ended his career of reporting in active conflicts in October 2000.

Hedges was based in Paris following the attacks of 9/11, covering Al Qaeda in Europe and the Middle East. He was a member of a New York Times investigative team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting in 2002 for their coverage of Al Qaeda. Hedges also received the Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism in 2002. Hedges' contribution to the Times award was an October 2001 article describing Al Qaeda's foiled bombing plot of the Embassy of the United States, Paris.

In 2005, Hedges became a senior fellow at Type Media Center, and a columnist at Truthdig, in addition to writing books and teaching inmates at a New Jersey correctional institution. In 2006, Hedges was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Nonfiction.

Hedges produced a weekly column in Truthdig for 14 years. He was fired along with all of the editorial staff in March 2020. Hedges and the team had gone on strike earlier in the month to protest the publisher's attempt to fire the Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer, demanding an end to unfair labor practices and the right to form a union. Hedges resumed work with Scheer after the launch of Scheerpost.