Charles J. Hanley

American journalist and author (born 1947)

Charles J. Hanley
Hanley in 2007
Born	(1947-07-06) July 6, 1947 (age 76) Brooklyn, New York
Alma mater	St. Bonaventure University
Occupation	Journalist
Employer	Associated Press
Notable work	• The Bridge at No Gun Ri • Ghost Flames
Title	Special Correspondent
Spouse	Pamela Hanlon

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

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

External links

C-SPAN book discussion, The Bridge at No Gun Ri, Berkeley, CA, September 10, 2001.
"What Really Happened at No Gun Ri?", a Pritzker Military Library discussion, broadcast on C-SPAN, July 20, 2004.
"Charles Hanley on Korean War 70th Anniversary", American History TV, C-SPAN, June 21, 2020.
Bill Moyers Journal: Buying the War, April 25, 2007, examination of American journalism in the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion.