Thursday, February 24, 2005

Not Quite Quietly Into the Night

Yo,

I can't say that Hunter S. Thompson was the only reason I wanted to become a journalist, but I can't say he wasn't a big factor. Thinking back, before I came across his work, a journo was, in my mind, that frumpy, do-gooder chick who toiled for the school paper. A journo wrote about daily minutiae nobody cared about -- and wrote it in such a leaden, objective way it was like dropping an anker off a ship. If The New York Times is the old "gray lady," as media-types like to call it, Thompson is the stabbing force of Hawaiian-shirt color that rapes and pillages all that she stands for. HST made it fun. He removed any pretense of objectivity and, by virtue of his unchecked ego, became a brand of his own, bigger than the story.

You pick up HST and within a paragraph you know who you're reading. That's a testament to his skill as a magazine writer; one of the funniest I've ever read. But a reporter? Not a fucking chance. If I took the kind of liberties with the truth (small "t") that he did with his stories, I'd get tossed out on my ass and/or devoured by the cyberspace school of blogger barracuda that has only begun to wreck vengeance on Old Media peddlers. There's something I hate about Hunter S. Thompson when I go through at the end of editing a story and check off with a red pen every single word, word-for-word, that goes out, double-checking ad nauseum that I got it right as I could.

He took his license early and often with the truth. He realized his value was as an entertainer and, as for informative, well, there's that Truth with the capital T. He used drugs, loved sports, consumed politics. I identify with and adore him for it. And what he shot back out at the world, like the blast of the cannon that he wants to be sent off with, was fucking awesome; genius and unfair to the rest of us stiffs who can only eke out Post-New Journalism on occasion.

HST made journalism cool, more so than any other man in history. He was not a great journalist, though -- a paradox that will, for me, be his defining legacy.

Mahalo,
Seraz

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is everyone done giving HST the reach-around?

March 3, 2005 at 6:08 AM  

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