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Online Journalism News

Gonzo legend prints web columns

Posted: 09/09/04 By: Jemima Kiss
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Cult gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson has published a collection of his columns for sports site ESPN.com.

Mr Thompson, who is also known as the Good Doctor, has been writing his 'Hey Rube' column for the US sports channel since November 2000, covering everything from American football and basketball to gambling and naked bowling.

Recent columns have included insights into the 2004 Olympics during which he digresses into orgies, amphetamines and Hitler.

"World War II would never have happened if Hitler had never discovered speed," he writes.

"Once he learned how to stay wide awake and utterly dominant for 99 or 100 straight hours at a stretch, his enemies knew they were doomed."

Mr Thompson was offered the column by long-time friend John Walsh, ESPN's executive vice president and executive editor. Despite his new incarnation as an online columnist, the Good Doctor does not seem to be too keen to jump on the new technology bandwagon.

"Hunter in fact types his stories on a typewriter and then passes them to his assistant and wife. She inputs them to the computer, and then submits them to Hunter's editor at ESPN.com," said an ESPN spokesperson.

"It is standard practice at ESPN.com that there is an editorial procedure for all writers. Nothing is published without having gone through that editing process."

The Kentucky-born writer started his career covering sports for an Amercian Air Force camp newspaper in the late 1950s, and went on to write for Time, New York Herald Tribune, National Observer and Rolling Stone.

Thompson's coverage of the Kentucky Derby was decribed as 'gonzo' journalism by his friend and fellow journalist Bill Cardoso; this phrase later defined the 'new journalism' of highly subjective reporting, often fuelled by drink and drugs.

His most famous work, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, began life as a report on a narcotics officers' convention in Nevada and the 'fabulous Mint 400' motorcycle race, although the final book is heavily fictionalised.

'Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness' was published in the US by Simon& Schuster on 16 August. There is no date as yet for UK publication, but the title can be ordered online.

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See also:
ESPN.com: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/archive?columnist=hunter_s._thompson&root=page2
OJR - Hunter Thompson, online columnist: http://ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1017962247.php
Buy Hey Rube on Amazon.co.uk