Charles J. Hanley Explained

Occupation:Journalist
Special Correspondent
Employer:Associated Press
Alma Mater:St. Bonaventure University
Birth Date:6 July 1947
Spouse:Pamela Hanlon
Birth Place:Brooklyn, New York
Notable Works:The Bridge at No Gun Ri
Ghost Flames

Charles J. Hanley is an American journalist and author who reported for the Associated Press (AP) for over 40 years, chiefly as a roving international correspondent. In 2000, he and two AP colleagues won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for their work confirming the U.S. military’s massacre of South Korean refugees at No Gun Ri during the Korean War.

Early life

Hanley graduated from St. Bonaventure University in 1968 with a journalism degree. In 1969–1970, he served as a U.S. Army journalist, including in wartime Vietnam.[1] [2]

Journalism career

Hanley joined the AP's Albany, New York bureau in 1968, returning there in 1971 after military service.[3] [4] In 1976, he transferred to the AP's international news desk in New York[5] where he eventually became a roving international correspondent, reporting on subjects ranging from wars[6] and summit conferences[7] to climate change in the Arctic.[8] In 1987–1992, he served as AP assistant and deputy managing editor.[9] [10] [11]

No Gun Ri

In 1998, Hanley and reporters Choe Sang-hun and Martha Mendoza, assisted by researcher Randy Herschaft, confirmed that the U.S. military massacred South Korean refugees – an estimated 250-300, the South Korean government later concluded – near No Gun Ri, South Korea, in late July 1950. The AP team had located a dozen U.S. Army veterans, witnesses, who corroborated the account of Korean survivors. The reporters also uncovered declassified archival U.S. military documents ordering the shooting of civilians, out of fear of enemy infiltrators.[12]

The story was not published until September 1999, after a year-long struggle with an AP leadership reluctant to run such an explosive report.[13] The AP team subsequently won 11 major journalism awards, including the Pulitzer[14] and a Polk Award.[15]

Iraq reporting

In the years after the 9/11 terror attacks, Hanley reported extensively on the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Before the 2003 U.S. invasion, he reported from Iraq on the lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction in that country, discrediting official U.S. claims.[16] [17] He was the first journalist to report on the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib and other U.S. prisons in Iraq, months before photos emerging from Abu Ghraib drew international attention to the story.[18] [19] [20] [21]

Awards

In addition to the honors for the No Gun Ri reporting, Hanley’s other journalism won awards from the Overseas Press Club, the Associated Press Managing Editors association, Brown University’s Feinstein media awards program, the Korn Ferry awards for reporting on the United Nations, and the Society of Environmental Journalists.[22] [23]

Books

In 2001, Henry Holt and Company published The Bridge at No Gun Ri, a narrative recounting of the 1950 massacre and events before and after, written by Hanley with the reporting assistance of his AP partners.[24]

In August 2020, PublicAffairs, an imprint of Perseus Books Group, published Hanley's Ghost Flames: Life and Death in a Hidden War, Korea 1950–1953, a narrative history of the entire Korean War, told through the experiences of 20 individuals who lived through it, civilians and soldiers of several nationalities involved. An underlying theme is the little-known "dark underside" of wartime atrocities.[25] [26] [27]

Earlier in his career, Hanley co-authored World War II: A 50th Anniversary History (Henry Holt); 20th Century America (Grolier Educational), and FLASH! The Associated Press Covers the World (Abrams).[22]

References

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Kellogg . Kathy . Webster . Terry . St. Bonaventure Boasts Fifth Pulitzer Prize Winner . Buffalo News . April 13, 2000 .
  2. Web site: Army Reporter Articles 2 . 25th Aviation Battalion . August 3, 1970 . Editorial Staff ... Spec. 4 Charles Hanley .
  3. New AP Employes . AP World . 1968 . XXIV . 4 . 38 .
  4. New AP Employes . AP World . Spring 1971 . 61 .
  5. New Posts . AP World . 1976 . 33 . 2 . 29 .
  6. News: Hanley . Charles J. . U.S. Troops, Religion a Fiery Mix in Iraq . Midland (Michigan) Daily News . April 30, 2003 . May 25, 2020 .
  7. News: Hanley . Charles J. . Analysis: Obama climate 'accord' is thin, toothless, but may prove small step on long road . CTV News . December 19, 2009 .
  8. News: Hanley . Charles J. . Climate trouble may be bubbling up in far north . ABC News . August 31, 2009 .
  9. News: Charles J. Hanley Named AP's Assistant Managing Editor . The Associated Press . New York . October 20, 1987 .
  10. New Posts: Charles J. Hanley to deputy managing editor . The AP World . 1988 . 12–13 .
  11. New Posts . AP World . 1992 . 14 .
  12. News: Choe . Sang-hun . Hanley . Charles J. . Mendoza . Martha . War's hidden chapter: Ex-GIs tell of killing Korean refugees . The Associated Press . September 29, 1999 . May 15, 2020 .
  13. Book: Port . J. Robert . Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press . The Story No One Wanted to Hear . Kristina Borjesson . Prometheus Books . 2002 . Amherst, New York . 201–13 . 978-1-57392-972-1 . registration . https://archive.org/details/intobuzzsawleadi00br .
  14. Web site: The Pulitzer Prizes . 2000 .
  15. Web site: Past Polk Winners/Long Island University . May 24, 2020 .
  16. News: Hanley . Charles J. . No vioations at Iraqi sites of concern . The Associated Press . Baghdad, Iraq . January 19, 2003 .
  17. Web site: Wrong on Iraq? Not Everyone . Rendall . Steve . Extra! . Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting . April 1, 2006 .
  18. Web site: AP Enterprise: Former Iraqi detainees tell of riots, punishment in the sun, good Americans and pitiless ones . Hanley . Charles J. . November 1, 2003 . utsandiego.com . San Diego Union Tribune . April 22, 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140503221406/http://legacy.utsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20031101-0936-iraq-thecamps.html . May 3, 2014 .
  19. News: Hanley . Charles J. . Early accounts of extensive Iraq abuse met U.S. silence . The Southeast Missourian . May 9, 2004 . July 30, 2020 .
  20. News: AP's Hanley Reported on Iraqi Prisoner Abuse Last Fall . Editor & Publisher . May 10, 2004 .
  21. Book: Mitchell . Greg . So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits – and the President – Failed on Iraq . New York City . Union Square Press . 2008 . 74–77 . 978-1402774508 . Charley Hanley at The Associated Press had actually `broken’ the Abu Ghraib story months before it came out via The New Yorker and other outlets. .
  22. Web site: SBU grad and Pulitzer winner to speak on 9/11 about AP coverage of war . Inside Bona's . St. Bonaventure University . August 23, 2007 .
  23. Web site: Winners: SEJ 9th Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment . August 5, 2010 . Society of Environmental Journalists . May 14, 2020 .
  24. The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War . The New Yorker . October 29, 2001 . September 12, 2012.
  25. Web site: A top-notch addition to the literature on the Korean War. . Kirkus Reviews . March 15, 2020 .
  26. Ghost Flames . Publishers Weekly . May 15, 2020 . "An essential account of America’s 'forgotten war'.".
  27. Ghost Flames . Library Journal . May 2020 . "An extraordinary kaleidoscope of human experiences in a catastrophic forgotten war." .

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