( CNN ) -- Journalist Michael Hastings , known for his 2010 profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal that led to the officer 's abrupt retirement , died in a car accident in Los Angeles on Tuesday . The 33-year-old had been a reporter for BuzzFeed since last year , when he was hired to cover the Obama re-election campaign . `` 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 . `` He wrote stories that would otherwise have gone unwritten , and without him there are great stories that will go untold . '' Hastings was also a contributor to Rolling Stone , and it was his profile in that magazine about McChrystal that led to the the general leaving his position . In his profile , Hastings quoted McChrystal and his staff criticizing and mocking key administration officials . The young reporter wrote that McChrystal and Obama `` failed from the outset to connect , '' and that the president looked `` uncomfortable and intimidated '' by top military officials . Hastings wrote that an unnamed aide to McChrystal mocked Vice President Joe Biden . The fallout of the article was significant , with the general resigning from his post as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan , followed by his retirement from the armed forces . `` Hastings ' hallmark as reporter was his refusal to cozy up to power , '' his obituary in Rolling Stone read . `` While other embedded reporters were charmed by McChrystal 's bad-boy bravado and might have excused his insubordination as a joke , Hastings was determined to expose the recklessness of a man leading what Hastings believed to be a reckless war . '' Read excerpts from Hasting 's profile of McChrystal .
Hastings was a reporter for BuzzFeed . He is remembered for his Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal . The profile revealed rifts between Obama and his commanders . McChrystal abruptly retired after the article was published .