“Journalism can never be silent: That is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.” -Henry Anatole Grunwald
One famous journalist that has had a large impact on the world of journalism is Hunter Stockton Thompson. He has done many things that led to his successful career in journalism. In addition to a journalist, Thompson was also an author and the founder of the gonzo journalism movement. Throughout his life, he wrote many great books and inspired other journalists. Thompson was born on July 18, 1937 in Louisville, Kentucky. His early life was a rough start; his father died, leaving Hunter and his family with little money. He never completed high school due to spending time in jail for encouraging a robbery. Before starting journalism, he had traveled lots and even joined the U.S. Air Force. Thompson is widely regarded as starting Gonzo journalism, which is a style of writing that “blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction”. This started because Thompson’s writing was very unique. He always wrote in first person and constantly
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Tom Wolfe, another well-known journalist at the time, described Thompson’s style of writing as “part journalism and part personal memoir”. He had sometimes used the name Raoul Duke to portray hisself. He described Duke as a self-destructive journalist who also was an alcoholic and a drug addict. People started to recognize Thompson for his author surrogate, Duke. Some people commented that the older Thompson got, the thinner the line got between Thompson and his literary self. During an interview, Hunter confessed that he constantly felt overwhelmed by the pressure to live up to his created fictional self. He also said that whenever he got invited to public speakings or parties, he wasn’t sure who was invited; his real self or
Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 20th 1978. Sinclair grew up in a broken household; his father was an alcohol salesman and killed himself drinking. While his mother would not even think about drinking alcohol. So these personalities naturally clashed. So Sinclair found some solace in books, Sinclair was a natural writer and he began publishing at the young age of fifteen years old. Sinclair started off going to school at a small college by the name of New York City College. This was just temporary as Sinclair would need time and money to move higher up to a form of better education. So as a result Sinclair took the initiative and he started writing columns on ethnic jokes and hack fiction for small magazines in New York. The money he earned writing these columns allowed him to completely pay for New York City College, and eventually enroll to attend Columbia University. Sinclair worked as hard as he possibly could to get into Columbia University and he was going to do the absolute best he could while he was attending the University. Since Sinclair needed ex...
...ant issues facing our world today. At the end of the day, every one could learn much from a writer that was never afraid to share his opinion on any subject no matter what anyone else thought about it. This goes to show, no matter how much an opinion differs from the majority, or the popular opinion, everyone still has a right and responsibility to let it be known.
Joseph McCarthy was born on a country farm in a little town called Appleton in the state of Wisconsin. He was born on the fourteenth of November in 1908. He grew up with parents who were very devout Catholics. McCarthy was also the fifth child out of nine children. He grew up like any other child, but he dropped out of school at the age of fourteen to work. At first, he worked on his farm taking care of the chickens. After keeping the chickens, McCarthy managed a local grocery store in the city of Manawa, Wisconsin. Finally, McCarthy decided to return to high school. He went back in 1928 which would have made him twenty years old and still enrolled. After finishing high school, McCarthy attended college at a place called Marquette University. He then attended law school and became a lawyer after graduating (“Joseph McCarthy” 1).
Self-motivation and determination are two of the main ideals of being journalist. If a journalist does not have the desire to find and report a story, he has no career. A journalist depends on finding the facts, getting to the bottom of the story and reporting to the public, whether it’s positive or negative. Janet Malcom states in the book The Journalist and the Murderer, “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.” (Malcolm, 3) Her starting words speak volumes about “the Journalist and the Murderer” and the lessons that can be learned.
In 1954, Sam Sheppard was accused of allegedly killing his wife, Marilyn. During this time, the media went absolutely wild. The way they obtained their stories was completely unlike any way they had gone about getting stories before. They completely invaded Sheppard's privacy to obtain "good" stories for their papers and television newscasts. Also, more stories were written about the case than any other event that had been covered in the past. Even the way stories were written was different than the usual style of writing used for that time period. Ethics were completely disregarded during the case. Because of this, Sheppard was released from prison, with the reason that the media had influenced the case so that the jury found him guilty based on the news stories. This had never happened before. Due to the unethical practices displayed by the media, the field of journalism instituted practices, which limited the power of the press.
In the documentary film, Page One: Inside The New York Times, the inner world of journalism is revealed through journalists David Carr and Brian Stelter as the newspaper company The New York Times, struggles to keep alive within a new wave of news journalism. The film is dedicated to reveal the true inner mechanics of what modern day new journalists face on a daily basis and leaves the audience almost in a state of shock. It broadcasts news journalism as yes, an old school method of news generation, but it also highlights an important component that reveals the importance behind this “old school” methodology. We often think that progression always correlates with positive products, but the documentary insists that within the case of modern journalism, the new wave method is actually a detriment that can reap negative consequences.
Bonila, Denise M., and Levy, Beth, Eds. The Power of the Press. H. W. Wilson, 1999.
In “Reporting the News” by George C. Edwards III, Martin P. Wattenberg, and Robert L. Lineberry, the main idea is how the media determines what to air, where to get said stories that will air, how the media presents the news, and the medias effect on the general public. “Reporting The News” is a very strong and detailed article. The authors’ purpose is to inform the readers of what goes on in the news media. This can be inferred by the authors’ tone. The authors’ overall tone is critical of the topics that are covered. The tone can be determined by the authors’ strong use of transitions, specific examples, and phrases or words that indicate analysis. To summarize, first, the authors’ indicate that the media chooses its stories that will air
In his editorial "Words Triumph Over Images," Curtis Wilkie blames today’s media for being “reckless” and “a mutant reality show”. He believes that television and radio are “unfiltered”, which causes the quality of journalism for newspapers to be unmatched. Yet, it is unfair to label all media that is not print as lesser because the quality of any media relies on the viewers and the individual journalists, and in drastic situations like a hurricane, reporters may have many road blocks. Any of these aspects can affect the quality of journalism, which invalidates Curtis Wilkie’s claim.
Hunter S. Thompson once said, “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.” There are no other words that would describe Dr. Thompson in a more accurate fashion. He lived his life like no other human being could ever imagine. He is arguably the most famous and creative writer to have lived, especially considering that he was the one who created the new style of writing that is referred to as “Gonzo” writing. He was the eye of a culture movement that left a significant impact on society’s perspective overall.
The field of mass media and journalism was built by the people to spread news across the globe in hopes of having a broader idea of government, conflicts and life as a whole. Since 59 B.C. when the first newspaper, Acta Diurna, was published in Rome, the field has been dominated by males. Men were considered to be fit for reporting because they were allowed to have an education and through social standards, seen as the only dominating factor when broached with an important decision or for an expert opinion on any topic. After equality within education started effecting the social norms, women began to branch out of the standards they were previously hindered by to become more forceful in competition with jobs, pay and intelligence. Through these changes, pushed along by war and protests, various areas of the work force slowly began to integrate women as part of their company communities. The field of mass media has been changed drastically through incorporating women, such as Nellie Bly, into the communications field and using their perspectives to get new angles for stories and in turn, improving investigative journalism and societal normalities.
The result is a 5 pages long article for the Columbia Journalism Review telling all the whimsical sort of requests and moods of Thompson during the process of delivering articles within the defined deadlines. It focus mostly on the personality “Hunter's manuscript pages were themselves manic, bristling works of art designed to turn the long, tedious job of writing, editing, polishing, and retyping a manuscript into a task worth staying up for.” (Love, 2005, pg. 64) are the words used to describe how Thompson managed to engage the reader, so much that even the very long process of editing was paid of by the emotion it
But both understand that the writer is the reporter of the world. The writer must observe everything around him and make everyone understand the significance of it all. And while they may not see eye to eye about how to go about explaining what defines the role of the writer, they both have done it in their own way and because of it, have become immortalized by the reader and idolized by the writer. Their words have not only taught us all what it means to be a writer, but what a writer is. He is an interpreter of nature. An inspirer of love. A challenger of the status quo. A teacher of society. A representative for the voiceless. And so much
"Journalists and Social Media | The Changing Newsroom." The Changing Newsroom | New Media. Enduring Values. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
Journalism: a profession under pressure? Journal of Media Business Studies, 6, 37-59. Scannell, P. (1995). The 'Secondary'. Social aspects of media history, Unit 9 of the MA in Mass. Communications (By Distance Learning).