PERSONAL FRAMEWORKS AND SUBJECTIVE TRUTH: NEW JOURNALISM AND THE 1972 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION BY ASHLEE AMANDA NELSON A thesis submitted to Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Victoria University of Wellington 2017 2 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the reportage of the New Journalists who covered the United States 1972 presidential campaign. Nineteen seventy-two was a key year in the development of New Journalism, marking a peak in output from successful writers, as well as in the critical attention paid to debates about the mode. Nineteen seventy-two was also an important year in the development of campaign journalism, a system which only occurred every four years and had not changed significantly since the time of Theodore Roosevelt. The system was not equipped to deal with the socio-political chaos of the time, or the attempts by Richard Nixon at manipulating how the campaign was covered. New Journalism was a mode founded in part on the idea that old methods of journalism needed to change to meet the needs of contemporary society, and in their coverage of the 1972 campaign the New Journalists were able to apply their arguments for change to their campaign reportage. Thus the convergence of the campaign reportage cycle with the peak of New Journalism’s development represents a key moment in the development of both New Journalism and campaign journalism. I use the campaign reportage of Timothy Crouse in The Boys on the Bus, Norman Mailer in St. George and the Godfather, Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72, and Gloria Steinem in “Coming of Age with McGovern” as case studies for the role of New Journalism at this moment in literary journalism history. As writers who rejected the mainstream press’s requirement for objectivity, the New Journalists occupied a unique role in the campaign coverage by offering different agendas and more personal frameworks than the mainstream media. I examine the framework of each of these writers’ reportage, and how their secondary agendas shaped their consciously personal narratives of the campaign. These secondary agendas and personal narratives give the New Journalists’ reportage a lasting meaning and cultural significance beyond the initial context of reporting on the campaign, and beyond the victory of Nixon, whom all four of the New Journalists analysed in this thesis opposed. As my examination of Crouse’s, Mailer’s, Thompson’s, and Steinem’s New Journalism about the 1972 campaign establishes, this microcosm represents a key point in the development of New Journalism. The research and analysis in this thesis argues that the field of study devoted to New Journalism needs to re-think some of the ways the mode 3 has been written about. There are assumptions in the critical discourse that have been consistently accepted but which should be questioned further. It is crucial to an in-depth understanding of the mode that New Journalism scholarship reassess some of the ideas that we have become certain about and make sure they actually fit the aims and output of the New Journalists at the time. The importance of understanding the role of personal frameworks and secondary agendas in campaign journalism reaches beyond New Journalism and, as I argue in the conclusion to this thesis, has been demonstrated to be keenly relevant by the role of the press in the 2016 presidential election and the striking similarities between the 1972 and 2016 campaigns. 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My deepest heartfelt thanks to my supervisors Dr. Nikki Hessell and Professor Harry Ricketts for all of their advice and support throughout my PhD. Thank you both so much for everything you have done to support my academic development, and for being such fantastic examples of good teachers and researchers. I could not have asked for more wonderful supervisors. My thanks also to my mother, Nicole Long, and my grandmother, Barbara Reed, whose continued support has allowed me to pursue my academic career to this point. Thank you also to my grandfather, Leonard Reed, whose love of books and learning has always inspired me. To the memory of my great grandparents Cecil and Erma Reed, for feeding a future English Literature PhD’s reading habit. My sister, Alyssha Nelson, for love, support, and friendship. My dear friend Linda Kimball, thank you for always believing in me and for our great conversations. And to the excellent Sarah Elliott, for helping make life outside of this thesis so much easier. To the members of the IALJS, for the wonderful and supportive community of scholarship on literary journalism in which this thesis participates. And finally, my thanks to the New Journalists, without whom this thesis would not exist. In particular, Timothy Crouse, Norman Mailer, Gloria Steinem, and Hunter S. Thompson – thank you for sharing yourselves with the world. 5 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Abbreviations ...................................................................................................... 9 A Note on the Text ........................................................................................................ 11 Introduction: Re-examining the Rise of New Journalism ......................................... 13 A Change Needs to Come ....................................................................................................... 13 Defining That Which Resists Definition ................................................................................. 15 The Decade-and-a-Half-Long Birth: A Historical Context for Literary Criticism of New Journalism ............................................................................................................................... 18 A Tempest of Thoughts: The Variable Key Elements and Themes of New Journalism in the ’60s and ’70s ........................................................................................................................... 28 The Medium of the Mode: New Journalism Publications ....................................................... 44 There’s Something Happening Here: The Socio-Political Role of New Journalism .............. 49 From Here, the ’72 Election .................................................................................................... 54 Chapter One: The Outsider on the Bus – Timothy Crouse Reports on Reporting 57 Introduction: A Bridge to New Journalism ............................................................................. 57 The Set-Up: An Outsider’s Perspective from Inside the Game .............................................. 58 The System is Lousy: Crouse’s View of Campaign Journalism in 1972 ................................ 63 Meeting the Press: Critiquing the Campaign Reporters in 1972 from a New Journalist Perspective .............................................................................................................................. 72 Only the News That’s Fit to Print: Crouse’s Analysis of the Influence of Key Publications on Campaign Journalism in 1972 ................................................................................................. 79 Crouse’s Nixon and McGovern: Exemplifying the Problems of the System of Campaign Reporting ................................................................................................................................. 83 Conclusion: What Comes Next ............................................................................................... 90 Chapter Two: The Novelist Journalist – Norman Mailer Tries to (Pre-)Re-Write the Outcome of the Election ......................................................................................... 93 Introduction: The Novelist Journalist ...................................................................................... 93 Mailer as Aquarius, the Involved Political Crusader .............................................................. 99 Mailer’s Nixon and McGovern: The Importance of Being Biased ....................................... 103 The Godfather’s Control – Manipulation in the Press .......................................................... 113 Conclusion: The Bigger Picture ............................................................................................ 123 Chapter Three: The Weird Turns Pro – Hunter S. Thompson as a Member of the Pack .............................................................................................................................. 125 Introduction: Expect the Unexpected .................................................................................... 125 It Came From Within!: Thompson as Disruptive Participant ............................................... 128 Pure GONZO?: The Development of Thompson’s New Journalism Alongside the Development of Campaign Journalism in 1972 .................................................................... 133 When the Going Gets Weird: Thompson’s Portrayal of Campaign Journalism ................... 140 7 An Unusual Intimacy with Nixon, and an Idealised McGovern ........................................... 145 Conclusion: Pandora’s Box Opened ..................................................................................... 155 Chapter Four: A New Feminism in New Journalism – Gloria Steinem’s Feminist Perspective ................................................................................................................... 159 Introduction: More Than One Agenda, More Than One Role .............................................