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cmsj

I was just thinking yesterday that we could use a new Hunter S Thompson, cataloguing the absurd times we live in.

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Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan is essentially the evolution of gonzo journalism.

"All Gas, No Brakes" was truly a perfect name for what Callaghan does (and what Dr. Gonzo did before that).

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '24

By Hunter S. Thompson

Gonzo has been out-jerked by reality. Abandon ship.

What would a new HST look like? Gonzo style journalism kinda already peaked in the 2010s with the wave of blogging and new media like Vice magazine.

HST was revolutionary because he broke the norms of journalism at the time while still making a coherent point. Nowadays journalism is plain broken, the norms are in tatters and the people that would be exposed don't give a shit and feel no shame for the awful things they do. No wonder HST offed himself.

It looks like Andrew Callaghan & Channel 5.

He was my initial thought too, but I feel like it's very similar to what Vice was doing 20 years ago

Everyone wanted to be gritty in the 2010s and now no one is gritty because of it. I want the opposite now, and have a source with a coherent, reliable voice which I sort of get with the Economist.

Yes, that's exactly it. If people want to see what breaking the norms is today, it would be, I don't know because I wasn't alive then, Walter Cronkite?

Jim Lehrer was more recent and an excellent voice on a national scale in North America.

Ontario has Steve Paikin who, until very recently, hosted a current affairs show on public television. He is easily in the top 0.0001% of people who can make sense of anything that comes up in the news.

A solid contender is this writer, who I follow on Twitter. This was the first article I read of his (which directly references Thompson) and I was absolutely sold.

https://thehuntfortomclancy.substack.com/p/fear-and-self-loa...

In 2025 a "tripping balls at ..." feels derivative of even the HST derivatives of the 2010s...

Reads like he's absolutely channeling/mimicking Thompson. I don't think it's coincidental, at all.

Seems to do a fairly good job of it, but I'm not sure that I would read him, myself. It just feels different, to me.

This is frankly morbid, but there was a good younger writer, Kaleb Horton, who I feel channeled the spirit of HST effectively, without the sense of direct mimicry. He died a few days ago, at a far-too-young age, but his work was excellent:

https://kalebhorton.ghost.io/death-is-just-a-change/

https://archive.is/RrjPI#selection-323.18-323.43

There will be plenty of others who carry the same torch, I'm sure – HST was one of a kind, though. Always the way with great writers.

I recall thinking the same about Harlan Ellison after reading a sampling of his magazine articles.

Robert Evans (iwriteok on bluesky) is similar. He's certainly more to the left than HST was and works in different media, but he's got the tall, authoritarian-hating druggie gun lover bit down pat.

I'd argue part of the reason the times are so absurd is that there's a whole ecosystem of gonzo journalists from Hasan Piker to Adin Ross to that one famous guy recently that got shot

I'm not familiar with the first two but Kirk was a propagandist, not a gonzo journalist.

Hasan Piker & Adin Ross are gonzo journalists?? Since when?

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