Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the recipient of the 2008 William Allen White national citation, speaks Friday at KU.

Famed investigative journalist Seymour Hersh told a Kansas University crowd Friday that there was good news and bad news about George W. Bush’s term in office.

Hersh’s bad news came first: “There are 347 days more days in the reign of King George II,” he said. “The good news is every morning when we wake up there will be one less day.”

Those sorts of remarks, fiercely critical of the current administration and sprinkled with memories of reporting the My Lai and Abu Ghraib military scandals, filled Hersh’s 40-minute speech at KU’s Woodruff Auditorium before he received the 2008 William Allen White national citation.

After he spoke, School of Journalism Dean Ann Brill, president of the White foundation that chooses the citation recipient, presented Hersh with the award, citing his service as a journalist.

“His work exemplifies William Allen White’s ideals, in service to his profession and his country,” she read off the citation.

Hersh told the crowd that Americans will have to live with the psychological damage service in Iraq has done to soldiers and Marines. He drew a parallel to a Vietnamese veteran who participated in the My Lai massacre, shooting at a 3-year-old boy who had survived the initial executions.

It wasn’t until nearly a year after the massacre that Hersh found the soldier, living with his mother. The mother decried what her son had turned into after serving in Vietnam.

“I gave them a good boy and they sent me back a murderer,” Hersh said that soldier’s mother told him.

He compared that story to a woman who served in Iraq at Abu Ghraib. She came back and tattooed herself with dark blue and black shapes.

“It was like she was trying to change the color of her skin,” Hersh said.

Ted Frederickson, a KU journalism professor who was asked to introduce Hersh, said Hersh’s reporting does more than just expose the misdeeds of the American government.

“A true watchdog does tell the truth about what the government is doing, but also about what the government is asking the soldiers to do and what it is asking of them,” Frederickson said.

Hersh’s comments weren’t limited, however, to his criticisms of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. He struck a hopeful and proud tone about journalism and its potential in the future.

“There’s nothing quite like what we can do if we do our jobs right,” he said. “There’s not many places in the world we can have that kind of influence. This is a special place.”

True to form, however, it wasn’t all warm and fuzzy for the media. Hersh chastised journalists for failing to question the Bush administration more in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Lawrence resident Karin Pagel-Meiners was one of a number of people who turned out to hear Hersh speak. She said she’s long been impressed with his articles in The New Yorker. She said the Abu Ghraib scandal he reported on was critical for society.

“This is the crisis and horror of my generation,” she said, “and I wanted to hear him talk about it.”