Gonzo Journalism is a style of journalism that is written without claims of objectivity, often including the reporter as part of the story via a first-person narrative. The word "gonzo" is believed to be first used in 1970 to describe an article by Hunter S. Thompson, who later popularized the style. The term has since been applied to other subjective artistic endeavors.
Gonzo journalism tends to favor style over fact to achieve accuracy—if accuracy is in fact meant to be achieved at all—and often uses personal experiences and emotions to provide context for the topic or event being covered. It disregards the "polished", edited product favored by newspaper media and strives for a more gritty, personable approach—the personality of a piece is just as important as the event the piece is on. Use of quotations, sarcasm, humor, exaggeration, and profanity is common.
Among the forefathers of the new journalism movement, Thompson said in the February 15th, 1973 issue of Rolling Stone, "If I'd written the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people—including me—would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism."[1]
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The term "gonzo" was first used in connection with Hunter S. Thompson by The Boston Globe magazine editor Bill Cardoso in 1970. He described Thompson's "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved", which was written for the June 1970 Scanlan's Monthly, as "pure Gonzo journalism."[2] Cardoso claimed that "gonzo" was South Boston Irish slang describing the last man standing after an all-night drinking marathon.[3] He also claimed that it was a corruption of the French Canadian word "gonzeaux," which means "shining path," although this is disputed.[4]
Another speculation is that the word may have been inspired by the 1960 hit song "Gonzo" by New Orleans rhythm and blues pianist James Booker. This last possibility seems to be supported by the 2007 oral biography of Thompson, which states that the term is taken from a song by Booker;[5] though, it does not explain why Thompson or Cardoso would have chosen the term to describe Thompson's journalism. According to a Greg Johnson biographical note on Booker,[6] the song title "Gonzo" comes from a character in a movie called The Pusher,[7] which in turn may have been inspired by a 1956 Evan Hunter novel of the same title.
Thompson himself first used the term referring to his own work on page twelve of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "But what was the story? Nobody had bothered to say. So we would have to drum it up on our own. Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism."[8]
Thompson based his style on William Faulkner's notion that "fiction is often the best fact."[9] While the things that Thompson wrote about are basically true, he used previously mentioned satirical devices to drive his points home. He often wrote about recreational drugs and alcohol use which added additional subjective flair to his reporting. The term "gonzo" has also come into (sometimes pejorative) use to describe journalism that is in the vein of Thompson's style, characterized by a drug-fueled stream of consciousness writing technique.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas followed the Mint 400 piece in 1971 and included a main character by the name of Raoul Duke, accompanied by his attorney, Dr. Gonzo. Although this book is considered a prime example of gonzo journalism, Thompson regarded it as a failed experiment.[10] He had intended it to be an unedited record of everything he did as it happened, but he edited the book five times before publication.
Thompson would instigate events himself, often in a prankish or belligerent manner, and then document both his actions and those of others. Notoriously neglectful of deadlines, Thompson often annoyed his editors because he faxed articles late--" “too late to be edited, yet still in time for the printer"[11] Thompson wanted his work to be read as he wrote it, in its "true Gonzo" form. Historian Douglas Brinkley said gonzo journalism requires virtually no rewriting and frequently uses transcribed interviews and verbatim telephone conversations.[12]
"I don't get any satisfaction out of the old traditional journalist's view: 'I just covered the story. I just gave it a balanced view,'" Thompson said in an interview for the online edition of The Atlantic. "Objective journalism is one of the main reasons American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long. You can't be objective about Nixon."[13]
Thompson felt that objectivity in journalism was a myth. Gonzo journalism has now become a bona-fide style of writing that concerns itself with "telling it like it is", similar to the New Journalism of the 1960s, led primarily by Tom Wolfe and also championed by Lester Bangs, George Plimpton, Terry Southern, and John Birmingham--in fact, gonzo journalism is considered a sub-genre of new journalism.
Though, when asked if there is a difference by Playboy in Ancient Gonzo Wisdom, Thompson said "Yeah, I think so. Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, for instance, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They're both much better reporters than I am, but then I don't really think of myself as a reporter."[14]
In a May 1st, 2010 article, Michigan Online News writer Jennifer Marinelli argues the long-lasting, sweeping effects of Thompson's work--not only on journalism, but the collective conscience as well.
"Hunter S. Thompson didn't just create a new form of journalism. He created a new way of thinking that is still important in today’s society. A style that is so influential that it has seeped through to the hearts and minds of the succeeding generations. Within the last two decades there have been an onslaught of novels, documentaries, works of art, and websites devoted to Thompson. It is doubtful that many members of the Digital Age partake in the hard gonzo lifestyle of drugs and alcohol that Thompson symbolizes. However, it is hard to ignore the similarities between Thompson's gonzo journalism and today's growing popularity of citizen journalism through new media like blogs and Twitter." [15]
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