New journalism was a style of journalism invented by Tom Wolfe who, when having trouble writing an assignment, sent his editor an unstructured narrative letter rather than the tight piece usually expected of a journalist of that time. This letter was published under the title "There Goes (Varoom! Varoom!) That Kandy-Kolored (Thphhhhhh!) Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (Rahghhh!) Around the Bend (Brummmmmmmmmmmmmmm)...", although was later contracted and gave its title to Wolfe's book "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby". The editor can take much of the credit for this creation in that he chose simply to remove the salutation from Wolfe's letter and print it as received. Articles in the New Journalism tended not be found in newspapers, but rather in magazines such as New York Magazine, Esquire Magazine and for a short while in Scanlan's Monthly, founded in 1970 and folded in 1971.

New journalism took on many of the devices of literary fiction:

• Stream of consciousness
• Conversational speech (rather than quotations and statements)
• Writer's opinions, thoughts and feelings (as opposed only to corroborated facts).

Journalists recognised as using the style include P. J. O'Rourke, Gay Talese and George Plimpton. Hunter S. Thompson was a major practitioner of new journalism. His first book, "The Hells Angels, a strange and terrible saga" is a more conventional piece, using the first person only to provide information on the Hells Angels, while his later work such as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" focus more on his own experiences and emotions.

The range of subjects covered by writers writing in the new journalism style covered most areas that journalism would normally cover. The psychedelic movement was something that many of the writers of the period covered, such as in Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", and the Vietnam War was another common topic. New journalism techniques were also applied to less obvious subjects, such as financial markets by George Goodman under the pseudonym Adam Smith, originally published in New York Magazine and later collected in a book called "The Money Game".

Some authors of conventional fiction switched to writing in the style of new journalism, such as Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood", and Norman Mailer's "The Armies of the Night"

Further reading

• New Journalism, Tom Wolfe, ISBN 0060471832

External links

• The Kentucky Derby is decadent and depraved (http://www.derbypost.com/hunter.html) by Hunter S. Thompson