Journalist Michael Hastings killed in car crash (VIDEO)

Michael Hastings, the plucky young journalist whose Rolling Stone piece brought down General Stanley McChrystal, died in a Los Angeles car crash Tuesday.

A Vermont native, he was just 33.

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"We are shocked and devastated by the news that Michael Hastings is gone," said Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed, which Hastings began working for last year.

"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."

Before his Buzzfeed gig, Hastings was a contributor to Rolling Stone and it was his June 2010 piece in the magazine about McChrystal that lead to the Afghan general leaving his position.

More from GlobalPost: Troops wonder what McChrystal was thinking

In it, Hastings quoted McChrystal and his staff criticizing and mocking President Barack Obama and key administration officials.

"Hastings' hallmark as reporter was his refusal to cozy up to power," according to his obituary in Rolling Stone. "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."

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