What is Gonzo Journalism?
Gonzo journalism is a journalstic style, most famously used by Hunter S. Thompson. The term Gonzo was first applied to Thomson's writing in 1970 by Bill Cardoso, who claimed that the word had originated from the Irish to describe the last man standing at the end of an all-night drinking marathon. What makes this type of journlaism interesting is that the reporter gives a novelistic twist to his reportage and using exssesive detail so as to catch the mood of the event.
In literary terms, "gonzo" has been described as requiring virtually no re-writing, using scribbled notes, transcribed views and telephone conversations.
Dr. Hunter S. Thomson
July 18th 1937-February 20th 2005
*This was inspired by a conversation that Kayla and I had at Tim Horton's over the 1000th issue of the Rolling Stone magazine.
posted by Nat @ 2:21 PM
2 Comments:
When I grow up, I want to be gonzo.
I have been a fan of Hunter Thompson for many decades. I even saw "Where The Buffalo Roam" in a large movie theater and I think I was the only one who came because of the subject matter and not because Bill Murray was in it.
I also tried to define Gonzo journalism before there was any written definition and what I came up with was this: "It is the belief that you can write a fictional report about a factual event and be closer to the truth than what is reported by the major media and newspapers.
A few years before I "discovered" Thompson I had read an article called "TIME: The Weekly Fiction Magazine." So with Hunter I felt like I had discovered an antidote for TIME, NEWSWEEK and the other news rags.
BTW, because of the internet you can read that article that I read back around 1965 http://twister.lib.siu.edu/cni/i24.shtml
Please note the names of the people that are quoted in this article.
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