As a journalism major I have been very interested in different ways that people respond to unique styles of writing and reporting. One type of journalistic style that I’ve always admired was Gonzo Journalism that writer Hunter S. Thompson first employed. Hunter S. Thompson was an American journalist and author with most of his credit for fame given to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and his time spent at Rolling Stone magazine reporting. Early in his journalistic career Thompson was employed at various newspapers and magazines in Central and South America as a copy boy and stringer. Eventually after his move back to The United States Thomson published The Rum Diary, a national best seller, and Prince Jellyfish, while trying to also publish multiple other short stories that he had little success with. After moving back and forth between The United States and South American Thompson settled for some time in the late 1960s immersing himself in the psychedelic hippie culture of San Francisco and began writing for a Berkeley based underground newspaper, The Spyder.

After his time spent in the bay area Thompson was approached by The Nation to follow the lives of popular outlaw motorcycle gang, the Hell’s Angels. Following the success of his article Thompson was approached by many publishing companies concerning an extended piece about his stay and experiences with the Hell’s Angels, eventually turned into the book published by Random House in 1966 titled Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. As a result of the success of Hell’s Angels, Thompson was able to publish articles for many magazine’s popular during the 1960s such as The New York Times and Pageant. Considering his familiarity with the offbeat San Franciscan culture of the time and in general the newly emerging “Summer of Love” mindset he continued to write based on his experiences with the hippie population surrounding the drug infested 1960’s counterculture. From the late 1960s into the early 1970s Thompson developed an obsession with the death of the American dream as reflected in his accounts of the Democratic Convention in Chicago and the riots that ensued, along with the popularity of the Las Vegas culture and lifestyle, which can all be seen as reflected in Thompson’s Fear and Loathing articles for Rolling Stone, and his novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Overflowing from his typical “freak culture” topic in reporting Thompson moved with his family of himself, wife Sandra Conklin Thompson and son Juan Thompson to Aspen, Colorado and developed his campaign under the “Freak Power” ticket for sheriff. In the end he narrowly lost the race but more importantly managed to publish his first Rolling Stone article in 1970 titled “The Battle of Aspen,” all of this leading up to the birth of what Thompson is best known for: the creation of gonzo journalism. His connection with Rolling Stone in the 1970s began with his article “The Battle of Aspen” but was furthered by his writings about the Kentucky Derby where he paired with Ralph Steadman to do a piece on their observations. During their first piece, as it would become the first of many that Thompson and Steadman would collaborate on, Thompson utilized one of the main components of Gonzo journalism: psychedelic drugs. “I’d seen the illustrations that Steadman was doing before he worked with Hunter. He was much more conventional before Hunter got a hold of him… Ralph told me as soon as he got off the airplane Hunter gave him some psilocybin,” quotes friend George Stranahan in the film Gonzo. Thompson had already had many experiences with drugs during his journalistic career, but for this style of writing it was what fueled one of the most unique elements of how his articles were to read- with both factual and fictional elements, and typically flowed more like a novel or story than a direct account of what was going on. Alongside the articles that Thompson was producing that were raw, real, and unedited, his counterpart at the Derby Steadman was producing art that held back just as much as Thompson’s writing- Nothing. “I was a quiet boy… so I guess it was attractive, that kind of raciness. I think the birth of Gonzo happened when the evil came out of me in the drawings,” said Ralph Steadman after his first job with Thompson at the Derby.

The origin of the term Gonzo in relation to Thompson’s style of writing is disputed on today. By most it is believed to have come from the 1960 jazz instrumental recording by James Booker entitled “Gonzo,” Thompson’s favorite song up until 1969. The term Gonzo was used as Cajun slang for “to play unhinged.” During his coverage of Nixon’s 1968 campaign he would play this song repeatedly while writing which drove Boston Globe Magazine reporter Bill Cardoso crazy. When “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved” was published Cardoso referred to the article as “pure Gonzo!”
Others believe that the term was a corruption of the French Canadian word “gonzeaux”, which means “shining path”, or the Italian “Gonzo” which is a common word for a gullible person, a “sucker”.

“First I realized I was doing something different. A friend of mine wrote me a note and said that the Derby piece was ‘pure gonzo!’ and I went well, if that’s what it was, and I’d thought it was a brutal failure- I’d botched my assignment- … and I got this onslaught of mail, and I was told that I’d made this great breakthrough in journalism. And I thought well Christ, if I’ve made this great breakthrough we’ve got to call it something. So I liked the word Gonzo,” (Hunter S. Thompson)

To Thompson the definition of Gonzo journalism stems from “a style of “reporting” based on William Faulkner’s idea that the best fiction is far more true than journalism.” This style steers away from the factual sense of reporting and turns more toward an anecdotal and crazed feel.

To define what is known as Gonzo journalism many components make up this technique that counter the traditional purpose and style of writing used in most reporting today.

1. A journalist is free to participate in events and circumstances which may themselves be considered newsworthy

When writing his pieces on Hell’s Angels Thompson took a step over the objective journalistic line separating reporter and subject as he traveled with his subjects and interacted with them on a more personal level, in the end accounting something that reflected his personal beliefs about the group and his experiences with them. He bought a motorcycle and rode with the group on many occasions, he was invited by them to parties and eventually was attacked by several members physically in private and publicly on talk shows based on his accounts that leaned towards the stereotypical outlaw, negative tendencies of the group that he’d seen proven to be true.
“In a nation of frightened dullards, there’s always a shortage of outlaws, and those who make the grade are always welcome… It was about this time that my long standing relationship with the Hell’s Angels began to deteriorate. For nearly a year I’d lived in a world that seemed original, it was obvious from the beginning that the menace bore little resemblance to it’s publicized image, later as they attracted more and more attention the mystique was stretched so thin that it finally became transparent.” (Hunter S. Thompson; Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga; Random House 1966)

2. Produce a brutally honest or highly subjective journalistic piece based on the real experience of a trained reporter writing from the inside

Much of Thompson’s work done regarding Richard Nixon in 1968 displays subjective journalism as it’s best. As he intensely loathed Nixon and all that he stood for Thompson was the epitome of biased when reporting on campaigns, and his search for “the real Richard Nixon.”

“So it was with a sense of morbid curiosity that I went to New England not long ago to check on ‘the real Richard Nixon.’ Not necessarily the ‘new Nixon,’ or even the newest model of the old ‘new Nixon’, who is known to the press corps as Nixon Mark IV.’ My assignment was the find the man behind all these masks, or maybe to find that there was no mask at all—that Richard Milhous Nixon, at age 55, was neither more nor less than what he appeared to be—a plastic man in a plastic bag, surrounded by hired wizards so cautious as to seem almost plastic themselves… these plastic handlers were chosen this time for their coolness and skill for only one job: to see that Richard Nixon is the next President of the United States.” (Hunter S. Thompson; “Presenting the Richard Nixon Doll”; The Great Shark Hunt: Gonzo Papers Volume 1; Simon and Schuster Paperbacks 1979)

3. Articles are raw and unedited usually including obscene amounts of profanity

The Kentucky Derby “article” that Scanlan’s Monthly received was not an edited, cited, honest account of what had happened at the race that would have been produced by the typical reporter, but was the result of sheer desperation as he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook. In the case of many of his articles it is clear that Thompson’s writing was usually full of ramblings, creative punctuation use and language not deemed proper by the English dictionary, but all of this added to the captivating effect that his writings have on the reader.
“Alright you chickenshit wimps! You pansies! When this goddamn light flips green I’m gonna stomp down on this thing and blow every one of you gutless punks off the road!
Right. Challenge the bastards on their own turf. Come screeching up to the crosswalk bucking and skidding with a bottle of rum in one hand and jamming the horn to drown out the music… glazed eyes insanely dilated behind tiny black, gold rimmed greaser shades, screaming gibberish… and genuinely dangerous drunk, reeking of ether and terminal psychosis. Revving the engine up to a terrible high pitched chattering whine, waiting for the light to change…
How often does a chance like that come around? To jangle the bastards right down to the core of their spleens. Old elephants limp off to the hills to die; old Americans go out to the highway and drive themselves to death with huge cars.” (Hunter S. Thompson; “Welcome to Las Vegas: When the Going gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro”; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; Random House 1972)

4. Blends fictional and factual elements; favors style over accuracy

Best put by Thompson himself, “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.” This style of journalism was something that was based on real events in history, but a gonzo journalist’s account was typically skewed, biased, or based on drug-induced opinions and observances of events. In one of Thompson’s most controversial articles that makes reference to 1972 Candidate Edmund Muskie having been on doses of a mysterious drug called “ibogaine” it is apparent that Thompson has traveled outside the bounds of factual and respectful journalism into a realm of storytelling and pranks.

“Not much has been written about The Ibogaine Effect as a serious factor in the Presidential Campaign, but toward the end of the Wisconsin primary race — about a week before the vote — word leaked out that some of Muskie’s top advisors had called in a Brazilian doctor who was said to be treating the candidate with ‘some kind of strange drug’ that nobody in the press corps had ever heard of.
It had been common knowledge for many weeks that Humphrey was using an exotic brand of speed known as Wallot… and it had long been whispered that Muskie was into something very heavy, but it was hard to take the talk seriously until I heard about the appearance of a mysterious Brazilian doctor. That was the key.
I immediately recognized The Ibogaine Effect — from Muskie’s tearful breakdown on the flatbed truck in New Hampshire, the delusions and altered thinking that characterized his campaign in Florida, and finally the condition of ‘total rage’ that gripped him in Wisconsin.” (Hunter S. Thompson; Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72; Grand Central Publishing 1985)

More directly can this be seen in Thompson’s account of his search for the American Dream in Las Vegas Nevada in “Welcome to Las Vegas: When the Going gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro”:

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like ‘I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive…’ And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down on the way to Las Vegas.” (Hunter S. Thompson; “Welcome to Las Vegas: When the Going gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro”; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; Random House 1972)

5. Articles read like a novel, relating to the term also used at times for Gonzo work, creative non-fiction

Thompson’s work during the Gonzo era was very descriptive and included many details and quotations from the events that were not necessarily pertinent to get the story across, but to give more a feel and atmosphere for the reader.
“I got off the plane around midnight and no one spoke as I crossed the dark runway to the terminal. The air was thick and hot, like wandering into a steam bath. Inside, people hugged each other and shook hands… big grins and whoop here and there: ‘By God! You old bastard! Good to see you, boy! Damn good… and I mean it!’” (Hunter S. Thompson; “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved”; The Great Shark Hunt: Gonzo Papers Volume 1; Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, NY 1979)
The writing was captivating not because of the facts presented but because of the creative writing tone that the work took to immerse the reader in the event in a new and exciting way.

Today the influence of Hunter S. Thompson and his influence on not only journalism but American culture in general can be seen in many different arenas of entertainment and reporting. Working in Gonzo journalism requires hands on experience as the writer researches what they write about. The technique compares to method acting as method actors become their character in everyday life and while filming to have more of a realistic outcome in their performance as they have “lived in the shoes” of their character. Gonzo journalism has influenced the Literary Journalism Program installed at University of California Irvine which gives students and opportunity to partake in stylized and creative writing in the journalistic field. It has also influenced the work of documentary filmmakers such as Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock as they work in this field with heavily biased but creative and informational work. Whether one agrees with the writing style that Thompson used and the stories that he reported on, it is widely accepted that overall Thompson has had a great influence on journalism and pushing the boundaries of what is to be accepted in reporting.