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Comment by motohagiography | Hacker News Reader

If someone tried to do poiltical journalism like Hunter S. Thompson today, I'd bet they would probably get hauled in front of congress for a struggle session, a journalistic cashiering from party personalities, and some terrible random luck from the bureaucracy just to make an example.

I wonder what changed about the world where the tradition of writers like Thompson, Hitchens, Vidal, Hemmingway, Menken, Bierce, and others with humour and moral courage just aren't a part of mainstream discourse.

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I couldn't disagree more!

Vice, for one, has basically commodified HST-style journalism. They have a whole show where a guy just tries different drugs [1]

And you can find all sorts of heterodox political and cultural takes in both mainstream news and the blogosphere, as well as the huge continuum of media between them.

The problem isn't that these writers don't exist anymore (or that they're being somehow silenced by congress). The problem is there's no mainstream culture anymore, and therefore there's no place for counterculture to consolidate. Instead we have a bunch of people shouting different things into voids of various sizes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton%27s_Pharmacopeia

Vice doing drugs and writing blogs for young adults is not akin to gonzo journalism.

How is it different? I am a huge Hunter S. Thompson fan but I don't think anything he did was any more important than "writing for young people and doing drugs"

Vice was a business that commercialized writing about drugs and providing a sympathetic lap for the resentful and demoralized. They had one good science writer that the whole scheme hinged on. HST's personal style changed journalism. He brought the techniques of insight from literary fiction to reportage, along with Thomas Wolfe, and the generation that followed.

Journalism was supposed to be objective, gonzo journalism is inherently not. Making the author a character in the story is the opposite of what a good journalist is to do…

Kids taking journalism classes might get to hear about Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 (through The Boys on the Bus) and I think there’s a little bit more to that than just writing for young people and doing drugs.

There's good writing and there's bad writing. Without getting into specific articles, if "Gonzo Journalism" or "New Journalism" is what it takes to inform some people, that's good journalism. It's like the Daily Show & Colbert Report. An old (2004) study [0] showed that Daily Show & Colbert Report viewers were the more knowledgeable about national and international affairs compared to people who consumed Google news, CNN or Fox News.

0 - https://archive.thinkprogress.org/survey-daily-show-colbert-...

I think you are too cynical about Vice and too kind to HST.

What would you call this? I'd say it meets the bar for gonzo:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/43jp9d/we-found-evidence-of-...

Jon Ronson has written several incredible books that all qualify as Gonzo Journalism. The only one I didn't like very much was the one about the adult film industry.

The Psychopath Test So You've Been Publicly Shamed Them: Adventures with Extremists

All great books and even better audiobooks that you'll like I think.

Vice had some interesting endeavors a decade ago. Now they're just another partisan outrage rag

The people he named were real writers. The ones you named would be making lattes if not for Vice etc.

You described gonzo journalism, and political journalism, but not gonzo political journalism — which is what the GP poster is saying doesn’t exist any more.

If someone tried to do political journalism like Hunter S. Thompson today, they would struggle to find the same sort of characters, because the Internet has collectively made us much more cautious about and accountable for how we interact with others.

Present literary journalistic techniques critique through insinuation and juxtaposition. HST just had to go places and let people talk.

> the Internet has collectively made us much more cautious about and accountable for how we interact with others.

That's a pretty shocking claim. I'd say it's quite the opposite.

It's a mixed bag. Everything you do IRL gets photographed and uploaded by your friends without your consent for future potential employers to scour through, Twitter becoming the whole world's HR department, your name, address and employer readily available with a Google search, etc.

I basically don't post too many opinions unless I'm on an alt account, and I'm considering tor for that going forward.

There's a give and take here. As more people are bold about how they express themselves, companies inevitably become more accepting of different types of expression. I've seen a massive shift from the 80's to today in what's acceptable for different types of jobs. There is always some risk for being on the edge of that trend, and we should be grateful to those who take those risks for making it easier for the rest of us.

A mixed bag? Is there anywhere in the history of humanity with more extreme and unaccountable behavior than the Internet?

It's about equally extreme in the level of accountability as well (for better or worse).

People do horrible things on the Internet without accountability all the time.

Never has there been a more vast and diverse set of weirdos in America and they have never been easier to find. Talk to me about "cautious" and "accountable" after you've been to a Furry convention, a gathering of the Juggalos, a Burner event, a Phish show and a couple sex parties.

Easier to find, but probably harder to talk to. I think it's not a coincidence that several of the subcultures you list above involve dressing in costumes. I'm sure part of that is immersing oneself in the culture, but there's also an element of anonymity that people value. At least some of this is a result of Thompson's influence on the culture.

These people will talk your ear off. One of the hallmarks of modern counterculture is inclusion, which is in stark contrast to the HST era where there was a much greater risk to being part of many countercultures, and so much more fear of outsiders.

As far an anonymity, I think people pick a particular blend that works for them and their career and family. But most people I know are pretty forward about their stranger/kinkier/less legal interests, at least on an interpersonal level.

Ironically, a friend of mine once attended a furry convention while dressed as Hunter S. Thompson.

I'm not sure what point this is meant to make; you'll have to come up with your own.

Totally agree. Hunter S. Thompson would just be a substack writer with a small following.

Conversely, I am sure there are many substack writers with a small following who would be just as big as Thompson if they were born at a different time.

Not only has media changed but the entire relationship of society with media has changed.

I would compare it to Adele being the only artist in the last 15 years to be on the best-selling album chart and probably wouldn't be there at all if she was 10 years older.

HST once gave his press badge on the Muskie campaign train in Florida to a random miscreant he met while out drinking[0], who then the next day went on to terrorize everyone on the train, ordering things at the press bar like a "triple Gin Buck without the Buck", manhandling reporters and the campaign cheerleader girls. At a whistle-stop speech, he stood in the front, heckled Muskie, grabbing his leg and yelling for more gin. He did a lot more than just "go to places and let people talk.". I think a lot of his genius for reporting came from how he involved himself in the lives of those he wrote about, combined with a rare knack for words and dedication to the craft of writing.

[0] Described by HST as "I listened for a moment and recognized the Neal Cassady speed-booze-acid rap - a wild combination of menace, madness, genius, and fragmented coherence that wreaks havoc on the mind of any listener... so I knew we had no choice but to take this man along with us... he had that rare weird electricity about him - that extremely wild & heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope of ever behaving 'normally'."

I recently came across Michael Hastings, whom I hadn't heard of before (living in Europe), but alas he passed away quite early. This sort of journalism seems to be a rare thing, but also not dead by a long shot.

See e.g. this on Gen. McChrystal and Afghanistan -- https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-runa...

Conservative corporate media moguls like Rupert Murdoch have since mostly consolidated news outlets.

In front of congress? Why?

I feel like Robert Evans is a pretty close replacement, albeit an updated version for the 21st century.

For his book “A Brief History on Vice” he talks about the drugs that shaped our early culture, and then tried those drugs while trying to remain as authentic to the traditional uses as he possibly could.

Brandon Buckingham is a modern day Hunter S. Thompson. There are probably hundreds of other YouTubers doing similar things but we haven't heard about them yet because they are at the beginning of their career and Hunter is past the end.

You read this article, and you see moral courage? I sure don't.

You should read up on the journal this was published in. Seems like there wasn't much temperament for this kind of political journalism back then either.

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