Hunter S. Thompson on Journalism
Posted on June 12, 2008 - Filed Under Career, College, Life-In-General, Media |
Towards the end of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and having just quoted disapprovingly from newspaper he encounters in Las Vegas airport, Hunter S. Thompson offers the following appraisal of journalism:
Why bother with newspapers, if this is all they offer? Agnew was right. The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuck-offs and misfits – a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.
In one way, reading this makes me feel like I’m making the right decision in opting for medicine (assuming I’m offered it), since Thompson’s description is a pretty damning evaluation of one of the few viable alternatives I have available to me in my mind’s eye. On the other hand, it’s such a wonderful piece of writing that reading it for the first time rekindled my fanciful notions of forging a living for myself as a writer. So the net effect is nil.
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“So do you think it’s serious Dr. Boland? Doctor?”
“Huh?”
“Do you think it’s serious?”
“Oh, sorry. I was just wistfully contemplating my erstwhile potential as a writer.”
“…What?”
“A writer. You know, a wordsmith. A scribe. A teller of tales!”
“I’m leaving.”
“Uh, ok. Can I have a cheque now please?”
*SLAM*
“What a funny old woman….Maybe I should use her as the inspiration for a short story!”
@brian LMAO!
@cian how ironic.