Hunter S. Thompson, 1937-2005

Ne hanno parlato in pochi sul Web italiano, ma a fine febbraio si è tolto la vita Hunter Thompson, King of Gonzo, giornalista di Rolling Stone e autore di libri che sono già passati alla storia come Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas e anche Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail. Nel 2003, riferendosi all’Amerika di Bush, Thompson scrisse…

I am surprised and embarassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it.

Riguardo all’influenza di HST sul giornalismo, mi piace David Gates su Newsweek…

…last week fellow journalists went so far as to call him “influential”. They wish. Now and then a certifiably literary writer – David Foster Wallace, Denis Johnson – will do a Thompson-like work of nonfiction. But while major magazines still let journalists personalize a story with their own observing presence, only bloggers (and such documentary filmmakers as Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock) are getting away with what Thompson did at Rolling Stone in the 70s: making the story indistinguishable from their sensibility. That’s not “serving the reader” – though Thompson’s readers didn’t seem to mind, and if they did, they knew what they could do about it.

Cioè, andare a farsi fottere. Eccola, una bella differenza fra blog e giornalismo :)