What is Gonzo journalism?
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Traditional journalism tries to remove the writer from the event and portray events as objectively as possible. For example, “The elephant has wrinkly skin.”
Gonzo journalism recognizes that no one has an objective perspective. For all we know, the elephant is completely smooth on the other side that we can’t see. It becomes about telling a story about an event, sometimes untrue, that captures the “feel” of it to someone in the middle of it.
Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72” for instance, followed George McGovern’s campaign from primary underdog to near-record general election loss.
Where a journalist might talk about polls and numbers and strategies, Hunter focused on the people and their energies. He made up a lot of stories, but several of his outlandish stories were things that actually happened to him. Both kinds served to illustrate the feeling – inhospitality, desperate labors, backroom bickering, boundless hope, and the lingering spectre of ’68’s instabilities.
Frank Mankiewicz, McGovern’s campaign manager, would often say in later years that the book, despite its embellishments, represented “the least factual, most accurate account” of the election. (quoted directly from Wikipedia – I wasn’t gonna phrase it any better)
See also Tim Crouse’s “Boys on the Bus” that describes other journalists covering the campaign as writing effectively the same stories, based on the same sights and press reports. But Crouse was willing to peak through doors, look through documents, ask hard questions. And when he wrote, it was about HIS experience as a journalist on the trail, reflecting the campaign staff, not a story about the campaign staff themselves.
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