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Gonzo journalism is a style of journalism that is written without claims of objectivity, often including the reporter as part of the story using a first-person narrative. The word "gonzo" is believed to have been first used in 1970 to describe an article about the Kentucky Derby by Hunter S. Thompson, who popularized the style. It is an energetic first-person participatory writing style in which the author is a protagonist, and it draws its power from a combination of social critique and self-satire. It has since been applied to other Qualia artistic endeavors.
Gonzo journalism involves an approach to accuracy that concerns the reporting of personal experiences and emotions, in contrast to traditional journalism, which favors a detached style and relies on facts or that can be verified by third parties. Gonzo journalism disregards the strictly edited product once favored by newspaper media and strives for a more personal approach; the personality of a piece is as important as the event or actual subject of the piece. Use of sarcasm, humour, exaggeration, and profanity is common.
Thompson, who was among the forefathers of the New Journalism movement, said in the February 15, 1973, issue of Rolling Stone, "If I'd written the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people—including me—would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism."
Another speculation is that the word may have been inspired by the 1960 hit song "Gonzo" by the rhythm and blues pianist James Booker. This possibility is supported by a 2007 oral biography of Thompson, which states that the term is taken from a song by Booker but does not explain why Thompson or Cardoso would have chosen the term to describe Thompson's journalism. The 2013 documentary quotes Thompson's literary executor as saying that the song was the origin of the term. According to a Greg Johnson biographical note on Booker, the song title "Gonzo" comes from a character in a movie called The Pusher, which in turn may have been inspired by a 1956 Evan Hunter novel of the same title.
In 2025, David S. Wills, author of High White Notes: The Rise and Fall of Gonzo Journalism, investigated the origins of the word "gonzo" and discovered that Cardoso had found it in an article he had edited for The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine just a week prior to calling Thompson's story "pure Gonzo journalism." The article was about countercultural icon Ram Dass and "gonzo" was used "with the context suggesting 'going wild' or 'losing control' on a hallucinogenic substance." The original article said that Dass "smoked pot and went gonzo on STP, the most powerful hallucinogenic ever concocted."
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas followed the Mint 400 piece in 1971 and included a main character by the name of Raoul Duke, accompanied by his attorney, Dr. Gonzo, with defining art by Ralph Steadman. Although this book is considered a prime example of gonzo journalism, Thompson regarded it as a failed experiment. He had intended it to be an unedited record of everything he did as it happened, but he edited the book five times before publication.
Thompson would instigate events himself, often in a or belligerent manner, and then document both his actions and those of others. Notoriously neglectful of deadlines, Thompson often annoyed his editors because he submitted articles late, "too late to be edited, yet still in time for the printer". Thompson wanted his work to be read as he wrote it, in its "true Gonzo" form. Historian Douglas Brinkley said gonzo journalism requires virtually no rewriting and frequently uses transcribed interviews and verbatim telephone conversations.
"I don't get any satisfaction out of the old traditional journalist's view: 'I just covered the story. I just gave it a balanced view, Thompson said in an interview for the online edition of The Atlantic. "Objective journalism is one of the main reasons American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long. You can't be objective about Richard Nixon."
The Gonzo Studies Society proposes eleven features that, to varying degrees, are included in Hunter S. Thompson's Gonzo journalism:
In 1998, Christopher Locke asserted that the online magazine genre is descended from gonzo journalism, a claim that has since been extended to social media. Thompson's gonzo journalism influence is reflected in the current website Gonzo Today which features a top banner by Thompson's longtime illustrator Ralph Steadman, with rotating contributions by others including Thompson associate, poet Ron Whitehead.
It has been claimed that Thai writer Rong Wongsawan wrote in a style that was Gonzo, beginning in the 1960s when he reported from San Francisco. However he wrote in Thai, and he probably developed the style independently of Hunter S. Thompson. He also used the style in his books Sattahip and Takli
/ref> His book The Man from Bangkok: San Francisco Culture in the 60s is an English translation of a book published in Thai in 1978.The Man from Bangkok by Rong Wongsavun (2022), tr. by Tony Waters. Thailand: While Lotus Books.
Thompson believed primarily in all of these aspects of Gonzo journalism ;however, he was also quoted as sharing a similar affinity with George Orwell of making political writing into art. Thompson’s style of writing relied heavily on verb driven syntax along with metaphors, allusions, ellipsis and more. Critics essay this was used to create feelings of despair, degradation, and desperation within his narrators.
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