I don't know anything about Thompson as a person, so I'll refrain from judging. I'm only glad that I'm finally able to put a term to what I despise most about journalism in our country (U.S.), evidently the term is "Gonzo journalism."
"Gonzo journalism tends to favor style over accuracy and often uses personal experiences and emotions to provide context for the topic or event being covered." --Wikipedia
I don't care about what the journalist thinks or feels. I'm an adult and I can form my own opinion, based on my values. Give me the facts! Just please give me the damn facts, I beg you! I don't need the anchor to "show attitude" and give me "what if" scenarios to wiggle my imagination while bending the facts in the process.
Currently, this technique is king among the major news networks in the U.S. It makes them completely incapable of reporting the news in its natural form: facts. It is unethical and amoral for journalists to swing public opinion with eloquent narrative that favors "style over accuracy."
I've always been a big admirer of Hunter S. Thompson's style. His point was that there is no way you can separate the author from the story so you might as well go in whole-hog.
No author can give all the facts and "just the facts". They can't help but shape and spin a story by selecting what they deem important, leaving out the rest. Their choice of words determines how the reader views the subject.
I'd rather know what the person that wrote an article thought and felt - it's another important fact.
This is probably true, the fact that you can't completely separate the author from the story. Where I disagree is going in "whole-hog." I consider it fundamental for a journalist to make her best effort to keep her opinion out of the story. To me, that's the definition of the format. News is not supposed to be about the person telling it.
If I am to believe what people said here (and I have no reason not to), Thompson adhered to a higher standard in his writing. As I said originally, I wasn't trying to say anything about him as a person or a writer. I just don't see high standards amongst our major networks. For issues that are important to me, they simply fail to report the basic facts when they're reporting their opinion.
Yeah, you obviously don't have the slightest clue what Gonzo is. Doing a quick scan on Wikipedia will not help you understand something. Read a few of Thompsons' works and then decide if you really would compare it to the current style of journalism that's prevalent in the west.
If you're intending to follow this advice, don't start with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It's a great story, but doesn't really capture gonzo journalism. Gonzo, perhaps, but not journalism. Hell's Angels or Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail (1972) are much better starting points.
If there's a fundamental difference between the weaselly narratives constructed by Fox News and the psychedelic screeds Thompson put out, it's that most reporters aren't making it explicit that their stories are fully personal, opinionated interpretations of true events -- they record some isolated facts, sample a few quotes and make vague references to public sentiment to back up any narrative they need. But they present all of this as objective information. This was happening well before H.S.T. (see "yellow journalism") and happens outside the U.S. too (see Daily Mail).
Thompson's approach was (1) a veil of entertaining literary showmanship over (2) complete, self-accountable interpretations of the events being covered. He was clear that his stories were subjective, and that freed him to explain exactly why he felt the way he did about Nixon, drug laws, Southern culture, etc.
The other fundamental difference is that Thompson was driven by actually trying to express the truth of the situation as he saw it, by piecing together things that by themselves wouldn't add up to "journalistic integrity" as defined at georgetown cocktail parties.
He once wrote a lengthy, 15-page feature piece for Rolling Stone about how the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 72, Muskie I believe, was addicted to an obscure stimulant found in an African root. The whole tale was entirely fabricated, and he never let on that he was joking. I'm pretty sure it would have qualified as libel. But in the process of telling the (deprave) story he managed to pinpoint everything wrong with Muskie's campaign at the time. Muskie sank to those very weaknesses (basically being a weakling/faker who was led around by his staff, in HST's estimation), and lost the sure thing nomination to a nobody named McGovern.
HST also once shaved his head before a debate while running for Sheriff of some county out in Colorado. He then spent the whole debate referring to the Republican in the race, clean-cut guy with a crew cut, as "my long-haired opponent". That one's not as profound, but it's hilarious. And says something about the media as well.
All news is biased and newspapers aren't only about news, so learning about the author that wrote that article or clearly seeing the bias (unmasked) gives you much more context than the simple facts.
Plus, gonzo journalism gives birth to some pretty entertaining articles.
"Strong beliefs, weakly held." That hasn't failed me so far. What people have said here (other people) is plenty to make me understand that Gonzo journalism means something else. I'm not particularly stubborn when proved wrong.
Do you see the irony in your own statement? "If you're going to blame something for lots of problems, kindly learn what it is first." and immediately "You are king among the problems in the United States today."
P.S. I can't believe people are up-voting something that is clearly meant to be personal.
"Gonzo journalism tends to favor style over accuracy and often uses personal experiences and emotions to provide context for the topic or event being covered." --Wikipedia
I don't care about what the journalist thinks or feels. I'm an adult and I can form my own opinion, based on my values. Give me the facts! Just please give me the damn facts, I beg you! I don't need the anchor to "show attitude" and give me "what if" scenarios to wiggle my imagination while bending the facts in the process.
Currently, this technique is king among the major news networks in the U.S. It makes them completely incapable of reporting the news in its natural form: facts. It is unethical and amoral for journalists to swing public opinion with eloquent narrative that favors "style over accuracy."