Hunter S. Thompson would not have passed a college journalism course. In fact, he probably would have been asked to withdraw, assuming he was conscious enough to listen. But the famed reporter, author, social commentator and unrepentant abuser of drugs and alcohol who killed himself Sunday was a brilliant writer.
From day one, journalists are told to be unbiased, to avoid inserting themselves into the story and to avoid flowery language filled with excessive use of adjectives and adverbs. But Thompson was so good at what he did that he could get away with shattering all three of those rules in one classic sentence:
“There is no way to grasp what a shallow, contemptible and hopelessly dishonest old hack Hubert Humphrey is until you’ve followed him around for a while,” he wrote in Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ‘72, which chronicled his coverage of the 1972 presidential election. You should see what he wrote about Nixon.
Of course, Thompson’s “gonzo journalism” would not have been appropriate for most publications, but he wrote for a magazine that people read for its entertainment value, not for its presentation of facts. That doesn’t mean that Rolling Stone’s readers shouldn’t have expected solid reporting; it’s just that Thompson had a little more leeway in his election coverage than a reporter from the Wall Street Journal might have had.
The Nixon administration wouldn’t have let Hunter Thompson anywhere near the White House press room, not just because he was critical of that administration, but also because the White House press corps is supposed to consist of ultra-serious reporters from the world’s most prestigious news outlets. Thompson himself would have admitted that he certainly didn’t fit those criteria.
So what about Jeff Gannon? As has been recently reported, Jeff Gannon, whose real name is Jeff Guckert, received daily White House press passes for almost two years, even though he worked for a less-than-prestigious website called Talon News. Using a pseudonym, Gannon gained regular access to what is supposed to be one of the most secure buildings on the planet, even though his press passes required secret security background checks.
The bloggers who helped uncover this story have had a field day over revelations about Gannon’s seedy personal life. But what’s far more interesting is the nature of Gannon’s organization. Talon News is “staffed mostly by volunteer Republican activists” and its content is largely filled with reprinted White House and Republican National Committee press releases, according to Frank Rich of the New York Times. During press briefings, Gannon was fond of asking White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan questions that everyone agreed were less than hard-hitting, such as when he inquired:
“Do you see any hypocrisy in the controversy about the President’s mention of 9/11 in his ads, when Democratic icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s campaign issued this button that says, ‘Remember Pearl Harbor’?”
To his credit, McClellan did not answer in the affirmative and alluded to the ridiculousness of the fact that Gannon was trying to equate criticisms of the current campaign with something that happened 60 years ago. You almost had to stop and wonder which of the two men was the reporter and which the White House staff member.
The Gannon sham comes on the heels of last month’s revelation that the Department of Education paid conservative commentator Armstrong Williams $240,000 to advocate the president’s No Child Left Behind plan. Williams issued a public apology for his indiscretions but refuses to repay the taxpayers’ money. Apparently, he’s doing it for the children. And while the Williams episode received significant media attention for a few days, it has now faded into memory and the Jeff Gannon incident is likely to follow suit, even though there are still dozens of unanswered questions about both. How did Gannon pass the security check? Why was someone from a third-rate website given a press pass? How many other “journalists” have been paid to spew Republican propaganda?
The Washington press is more than happy to allow the Bush administration to set the agenda for them. The media is so sensitive to perceptions of liberal bias that it is willing to let go of outrages like the Gannon and Williams stories, out of fear that it will be accused of favoritism.
Most journalists are indeed liberal, but that does not mean that they can’t be fair and that they shouldn’t fight to protect the integrity of their profession in situations like this. The media should rigorously pursue these investigations by interrogating the Bush administration and by collecting their own evidence. If Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater were important enough, these transgressions should be too. The press corps must regain its vigilance, even if it annoys Bush so much that he stops calling them by their nicknames. That means you too, Stretch.
Hunter S. Thompson did not possess all of the qualities that make a good journalist. But today’s media can learn a lot from him in at least one respect. Thompson was part of a dying breed of reporters who relished his antagonistic relationship with the political establishment, and he was never subtle. In his final article for Rolling Stone on the 2004 election, Thompson recalled the first time he met John Kerry at a protest in 1972 in front of the White House.
“He was yelling into a bullhorn,” he wrote. “And I was trying to throw a dead, bleeding rat over a black-spiked fence and onto the president’s lawn.”
