Dr. Hunter S. Thompson is often credited with inventing a new form of journalism known as "gonzo journalism," however, very little was unique about his style. Thompson’s writing is similar to a long-standing tradition of literary journalism that has been used since the dawn of the printing press, and was seeing a wide resurgence in his time.
What is Gonzo Journalism?
The term ”gonzo journalism” was first used in reaction to an article written by Thompson called The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved.
According to William McKeen's 1991 book Hunter S. Thompson , Bill Cardoso of the Boston Globe labeled the article “pure gonzo journalism.” Cardoso explained that “gonzo” was originally a South Boston Irish slang used to describe the last man standing after a night of drinking.
According to Cardoso, "many critics have attempted to define gonzo, but few came up with a more pragmatic definition than John Filiatreau of Thompson’s hometown newspaper, the Courier-Journal. Gonzo ‘can only be defined as what Hunter Thompson does,’ he wrote. ‘It generally consists of the fusion of reality and stark fantasy in a way that amuses the author and outrages his audience. It is Point of View Run Wild.’ Gonzo requires virtually no re-writing, with the reporter and the quest for information as the focal point."
But if we are to consider gonzo journalism a new literary movement and not just a nickname for Thompson's work, it has to consist of more than just "what Thompson does." Though it is hard to define, some characteristic traits of gonzo journalism include humor, sarcasm, scoffing, profanity, the author as the main character, and the journey as the destination.
Journalism in Early Cold War America
According to Marc Weingarten's 2006 book The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight, Thompson's narrative style of journalism was seeing a wide resurgence in early cold war America. While many writers experimented with subjective first person narrative journalism, Thompson's style was the only one that was given its own name.
"War, assassination, rock, drugs, hippies, Yippies, Nixon: how could a traditional just-the-facts reporter dare to provide a neat and symmetrical order to such chaos?" wrote Weingarten. "Many of them couldn’t and didn’t… Within a seven-year period, a group of writers emerged, seemingly out of nowhere — Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, Gay Talese, Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion, John Sack, Michael Herr — to impose some order on all of this American mayhem, each in his or her own distinctive manner."
Gonzo Journalism Before Gonzo Journalism
According to David R. Spencer's The Yellow Journalism, Thompson's style of first-person highly opinionated narrative journalism was the norm before fact checking and accuracy became valued journalistic traits.
"Twain offered his reservations on what he termed the new journalism, which we may term Yellow Journalism. Specifically, he was upset that some journalism in this genre had attacked religion and that these attacks 'had made scoffing popular.' Scoffing indeed! What Twain was really complaining about was what we would now call a lack of objectivity. Throughout the nineteenth century, the process by which news was delivered to a consuming public had strong parallels in the ancient art of storytelling. But in the mid-1860’s, the seeds of destruction of the genre had been planted with the invention of the inverted pyramid. The adoption of the inverted pyramid, no matter whose version of its invention one may accept, was based on the concept that the most important aspect of news delivery was tied to facts and that somehow or other these facts were not tainted with personal agenda."
Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone Magazine, Gonzo Journalist?
Matt Taibbi who currently writes for Rolling Stone Magazine. is constantly compared to Hunter S. Thompson, and is often called a gonzo journalist as well. In an interview with Corey Millard, editor of Ithaca College's Ithaca Times, Taibbi discusses a conversation with Dr. Thompson on gonzo journalism.
"I could never figure out what 'gonzo journalism' actually meant. In fact, I’m not even sure such a thing as 'gonzo journalism' exists, independent of Hunter Thompson. I even talked about this with him once, when I was assigned by a publishing house to edit an anthology of gonzo journalism. Back then, I called Hunter and told him about the project. He said to me, 'Sounds like a shitty assignment. How badly do you need the money?' I told him I really needed the money, but couldn’t figure out how to define what 'gonzo journalism' was, except to say that 'gonzo' vaguely meant: 'like Hunter Thompson.' Hunter ended up advising me to ditch the project and I did. Incidentally, I think the Thompson comparisons are embarrassing. I mean, I get it - I’m a humorist with a drug history who covers presidential politics in the first person for Rolling Stone - but in reality it’s silly. That’s sort of like saying Meat Loaf and Pavarotti are both fat singers. Technically true, I guess."
Conclusion
Gonzo journalism, which Thompson is credited for inventing, was in fact reminiscent of a style that used to be the norm before the rise of the inverted pyramid style in the mid-1860’s. It took almost a century, but this classic style of journalism would find prominence again in the strange beginnings of Cold War America.
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, who is often considered the pioneer of gonzo journalism, was really just a contributor to the widespread resurgence of literary journalism. Gonzo Journalism is therefore not a unique movement perpetrated by Thompson, but rather another name for the “new journalism” of the 1960’s or the “new journalism” of the 1860’s. The reason why no clear definition of gonzo journalism exists is simple; it is because there is none. Many authors have written about gonzo journalism as a movement pioneered by Thompson, but since others who write in a similar style do not consider themselves a part of this movement it can hardly be considered a movement at all. Therefore, the term “gonzo journalism” is essentially meaningless.
Please note that this is an abstract from a larger essay. For a copy of the complete work send your e-mail to the author, or leave it in the comments section.
Jared Lindzon - Jared Lindzon is a MA in Journalism Graduate from the University of Western Ontario. He has been published in The National Post, BlogTO, ...
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