The award-winning investigative reporter who exposed the controversial story of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in The New Yorker magazine will be speaking in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union on Wednesday.

Seymour Hersh’s extensive list of accomplishments include more than a dozen major journalism prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, and four George Polk Awards. He is also the author of eight books, including his newest book, “Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib.”

Pat Miller, program manager of the Committee on Lectures, said Hersh has been to Iowa State on several occasions and always covers a lot of ground during his lectures.

“It’s an honor to have him,” Miller said.

Hersh, whose break-out story exposed the 1969 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, is expected to discuss his newest book and the recent election.

He is the latest lecturer in the Cultivating Democracy lectures series.

Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, he admired a lot of things about Hersh.

“He has one of the best instincts of journalists today. He has an inner knowing of where to look for that information,” Bugeja said. “He can detect the void where there ought to be public discourse but there is none.”

Bugeja said Hersh knows what censorship and stonewalling is, and he tackles whatever barriers he sees.

Barbara Mack, associate professor of journalism and communication, mirrored Bugeja’s enthusiasm for Hersh’s work.

“He is one of the toughest and most thorough of American investigative reporters,” Mack said.

She said she believed Hersh did an outstanding job of investigating how the Pentagon responded to the Abu Ghraib, and that “The Chain of Command” does a real service to America because it outlines the failure of the chain of command in the controlling of the abuses.

Bugeja said one of the characteristics that make Hersh stand out the most is that “he can hear the silence.”

Whenever there is a noticeable silence, he said, there is a good chance there’s a bigger story behind it.

He said that because journalists are so busy, they often don’t stop to listen for the silence.

“As a journalist, we’re trained to hear the obvious,” he said. “We’re not trained enough to hear the silence.”

Who: Author and journalist Seymour Hersh

Where: Sun Room, Memorial Union

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday

Cost: free