Why Nord Stream blast story's writer avoided mainstream

Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who spent many years as an investigative journalist for The New York Times, said he did not consider offering his latest story — in which he accuses the US and allies of bombing Russia's Nord Stream gas pipelines — to the newspaper because it has favored Ukraine in its yearlong military conflict with Russia.

Hersh spoke with Democracy Now!, which published a video of the interview on Feb 15.

The veteran investigative journalist, 85, was asked about his latest piece on substack.com, which was published on Feb 8 and titled, How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline.

In the 5,800-word article, Hersh alleges that on Sept 26, 2022, US Navy divers, aided by Norway, planted explosives that destroyed three of the four natural gas pipelines that make up Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2.

The pipelines, which have a terminus in Germany, supplied European nations with an affordable energy source.

The White House has called Hersh's article "utterly false and complete fiction".

On Thursday, the Russian embassy to the United States said that it should try to prove it was not behind the destruction of the pipelines.

Moscow considers the destruction "an act of international terrorism" and will not allow it to be swept under the rug, the embassy said in a statement.

Also on Thursday, lawmakers in the Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament, unanimously voted to adopt an appeal to the United Nations demanding a probe into the pipeline explosions.

In the interview, Hersh expressed his frustration with the Times.

"It's a tiresome game to me. So what happens is I do my story on Substack. I wouldn't even think — I'm embarrassed to say it after all those wonderful years I had at The New York Times — I wouldn't even think of taking a story like this to The New York Times.

"They've decided that the Ukraine war is going to be won by Ukraine, and that's what their readers get, and so be it. That's their call."

Hersh also has worked at The New Yorker, The Associated Press, UPI, PBS, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the London Review of Books.

"I don't know why they're (the Times) not doing more reporting on this, instead of relying on a denial and walking away from the story," Hersh said in the interview. "Ditto for The Washington Post. I think the consequences politically for us in the long run … (we're) looking at even (potentially) some countries walking out of NATO."

The Times Co and its news pages so far have not responded or covered Hersh's Nord Stream claims and subsequent criticism on its website.

But Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat, in a Feb 15 piece, wrote: "There are good reasons to doubt the story, starting with its apparent reliance on a single source and working through various factual and plausibility issues. Hersh is famous for breaking important stories and also for getting other stories badly wrong."

Substack, founded in 2017 and headquartered in San Francisco, is an online platform that provides publishing, payment and design services for writers who sell subscriptions directly to readers.

In a preface to the Nord Stream article, Hersh wrote: "The story you will read today is the truth as I worked for three months to find, with no pressure from a publisher, editors or peers to make it hew to certain lines of thought — or pare it back to assuage their fears. Substack simply means reporting is back … unfiltered and unprogrammed — just the way I like it."

In the Democracy Now interview, Hersh said: "There's no question there's been a polarization of the press since Trump got in. We're now on two sides — you know, right, left, Democrat, Republican, however you describe it. If you watch Fox News, you don't watch MSNBC, et cetera, et cetera.

"And if you read The New York Times, you're not going to get what the right-winger — you know, the conservatives have been after The New York Times and Washington Post for their, quote-unquote, 'liberal' views," he said. "So, we've got a polarization going."

Mark Ames, co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast and the first to interview Hersh after his Nord Stream story, told responsiblestatecraft.org, "The corporate media is ignoring Hersh's story because they're deeply invested in the US empire and don't like stories that make the US empire look bad."

Ames' co-host Gary Brecher added, "The mainstream media, they have decided on their own that we are at war, and by 'we', that means the Acela corridor, the expensive suburbs of the East Coast … and that means the rules (of journalism) have changed."

George Beebe, a former CIA analyst and director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute, which produces the Responsible Statecraft website, said, "If the US engaged in what many would regard as an act of war, destroying the critical infrastructure of a NATO ally, without notifying Congress, that raises profound issues of executive-legislative relations and intra-alliance management, let alone what it might mean for the possibility of Russian retaliation on American infrastructure."

Hersh also said that he believes Russia will prevail in the conflict with Ukraine.

"It's a question of how many more people (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky wants to kill of his own people. It's going to be over.

"I don't think there's any chance that Putin wants to take over Europe," said Hersh. "He wants to have Ukraine tamed. But he's not interested in doing anything more. I may be in a minority about that."

Reuters contributed to this story.