Tag: journalism

Former Downing Street Press Secretary Alastair Campbell, who still imagines that people like him control what the masses think.

3,070 words

The late comedian Bill Hicks had a skit in which he described the average Joe turning on the TV for the news and getting: Death! Famine! War! Disease! Aaaaargh! The guy turns off the TV and looks out of his back window to hear quiet, apart from the gentle drone of crickets. He thinks, “Where the hell is all this going down?” Another comedic Bill, Bill Burr, updated this observation recently on YouTube political channel Triggernometry. On Twitter, he said, everyone is screaming at one another. Then you go outside for a walk and everyone is smiling at each other. (more…)

2,388 words

Part 7 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 6 here)

7. Final Wisdom: The Truth Was Not in Him!

“We’d be fools not to ride this strange torpedo to the end!” (more…)

5,490 words

Part 6 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 5 here, Part 7 here)

6. Gonzo: Paleocon, Neocon, or Just Con?

I had just begun to doubt some of my strongest convictions when I stumbled upon [Colin Wilson’s The Outsider]. But rather than being wrong, I think that I just don’t express my rightness correctly. — Hunter S. Thompson (more…)

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Part 5 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 4 here, Part 6 here)

5. Gonzo is the Secret: The Power of Positive Gonzo

Constant Readers will know that I love to find me some traces of Neville in any iconic figure, and sure enough, it turns out there’s plenty of it here. (more…)

Thompson when he was running for Sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado in 1970.

3,735 words

Part 4 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 3 here, Part 5 here)

4. Father of Fake News – or OT (Original Troll)? . . . The Myth of the Golfing Douchebag

I have discovered the secret of writing fiction, calling it impressionistic journalism, and selling it to people who want “something fresh.” — Hunter S. Thompson

Any man who still has a residue of honor will be very careful not to become a journalist. — Dr. Josef Goebbels (more…)

Hunter passed out drunk while covering an event as a journalist circa 1960.

7,043 words

Part 3 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 4 here)

3. Gonzo: What Happened? — Decline and Fall of Gonzo

As Thompson charts Hemingway’s road from literary brilliance to failure and suicide, he maps out his own path for the future. (more…)

Hunter S. Thompson during his time in the Air Force.

3,360 words

Part 2 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 3 here)

2. What is Gonzo? — High White Notes

“It has finally come home to me that I am not going to be either the Fitzgerald or the Hemingway of this generation . . . I am going to be the Thompson of this generation, and that makes me more nervous than anything else I can think of.” (more…)

3,214 words

Part 1 of 7 (Part 2 here)

David S. Wills
High White Notes: The Rise and Fall of Gonzo Journalism
St. Andrews: Beatdom Books, 2021

“He’s a drunk and he’s a doper who has got a style which is very dangerous for journalism students to pick up on.” — Harlan Ellison, 1979[1]

David Wills comes not to bury Hunter Thompson, but to praise him; ultimately, he does a pretty good job of both. (more…)

2,263 words

Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)

The Question of Public Virtue

When Lasch wonders whether American democracy can survive crime, drugs, and urban decay, he is sounding another populist theme that harks back to classical republicanism: the dependence of popular government on public virtue. (more…)

146 words / 1:23:06

Host Greg Johnson was joined by magus James J. O’Meara on the latest episode of Counter-Currents Radio to talk about Hunter S. Thompson, the father of fake news, plus current events and YOUR QUESTIONS, and it is now available for download and online listening.

Topics discussed include:

00:03:22 Introduction to High White Notes: The Rise and Fall of Gonzo Journalism
00:07:23 Who was Hunter S. Thompson?
00:20:11 Thompson as the father of fake news (more…)

Walter Duranty

2,600 words

“The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weaker man with the sponge. First, the criminal who slays, then the sophist who defends the slayer.” — Lord Acton

“There is no famine, nor is there likely to be.” — Walter Duranty, The New York Times

Walter Duranty, a British-born journalist, served as the Moscow bureau chief for the New York Times from 1922 through 1936. (more…)

Hitler bin Laden

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There is a certain type of story that has been coming out of the liberal press lately in which they discuss White Nationalists saying nice things about Islamic fundamentalists. There were several of them a couple of months ago, when the Taliban overthrew the government in Afghanistan. (more…)