http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/opinion/How-did-Rolling-Stone-magazine.6386219.jp
Published Date: 27 June 2010
By Dani Garavelli
THE front cover of the latest edition of Rolling Stone magazine
features two semi-automatic weapons wielded in a menacing manner. But
though the controversial publication was last week responsible for
ending the glittering military career of General Stanley McChrystal
the machine guns had nothing to do with his role as top US commander
in Afghanistan.
Rather they are attached to a bra worn by a near-nude Lady Gaga,
whose revelation that she is "terrified" of babies is the issue's
chief selling point. Only after drawing its readers' attentions to
features on Dennis Hopper, BP and the Bonnaroo Music Festival, does
it mention the profile of McChrystal, which revealed his contempt for
President Barack Obama and other political leaders and led him to be
replaced by General David Petraeus.
This is the contradiction at the heart of the magazine. It explains
why despite a tradition of reportage stretching back to its 1967
launch by owner, editor and publisher Jann Wenner the first
response to the scoop in many quarters was a bemused: "Really, in
Rolling Stone?"
Executive editor Eric Bates is so used to this, he calls it the "Of
All Places" syndrome. "There's still this lingering sense you're a
music magazine and what are you doing over in Afghanistan," he says.
But the fact that Michael Hasting's profile of McChrystal was
published in this magazine will have come as no surprise to those
acquainted with its history. From its inception in San Francisco
during the Summer of Love, it has been associated with cutting-edge
journalism in general, and in-depth pieces about the military in
particular. In the Seventies, it gave birth to a new style of more
subjective and flamboyant writing known as Gonzo journalism
pioneered by its most famous contributor Hunter S Thompson, who
produced a savage attack on the political system after going on the
campaign trail with Richard Nixon and Senator George McGovern.
While always focusing on musicians on the cover, it broke new
journalistic ground inside, with Howard Kohn's inside story on Patty
Hearst's flight across the US with her abductors; and an
investigation into the suspicious death of Karen Silkwood, campaigner
at an Oklahoma nuclear energy plant placing it at the forefront of
investigative reporting.
Even in the late Eighties and Nineties when many critics felt it
had lost its way it carried a series of articles by Eric Schlosser
which became Fast Food Nation, as well as David Lipsky's feature on
the US Military Academy at West Point, the longest piece it had
printed since Thompson's Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.
Most recently, it took on the banks with Matt Taibbi describing
Goldman Sachs as a "vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity
relentlessly jabbing its blood funnel into anything that smells like
money" and nurtured the talent of Evan Wright, whose features on
his time embedded with 1st Reconnaissance Battalion of the US marines
during the 2003 invasion of Iraq became the award-winning book and
mini-series Generation Kill.
"What Jann does is he finances a journalist to go out (on a job] for
a month or two months, and he'll say take your time to write it, take
your time to research it, and we'll pay you for it, we'll cover your
expenses, and that's very rare," says Wright. "Even back at the
invasion of Iraq, there were approximately 500 journalists embedded
with coalition forces, but I was told there were only two or three of
us there for the duration, given free rein."
What is more surprising, perhaps, than Rolling Stone's publication of
the McChrystal story, is that the General agreed to be part of it,
given its anti-establishment and left-leaning sensibilities.
Wenner has contributed to the Democrat Party and the magazine
supported Al Gore, John Kerry and Obama in the 2000, 2004 and 2008
presidential elections. But although it wears its liberal credentials
on its sleeve, the magazine has never been enslaved by them. "The
Marine Corps gave Generation Kill this thing called the General
(Wallace M] Greene Award, (because] they considered it the best piece
of history of the corps. It liked my writing, so clearly Rolling
Stone is capable of journalism that defies the expectations that it's
a liberal magazine," says Wright. "They support the Democrats, but
doesn't mean they hate the military or they are incapable of seeing
good points that come out of the right."
McChrystal, once a hard-drinking, rebellious graduate of West Point,
might have been attracted to this irreverence.
Its refusal to be pigeon-holed and its determination to remain
outside the mainstream comes down to the idiosyncratic approach of
its owner. When Wenner, the son of a baby food magnate, set up
Rolling Stone with $7,500 borrowed from a relative, his vision was
for a counter-cultural magazine which stood outside the mainstream,
but did not embrace the radical politics of underground newspapers
such as the Berkeley Barb.
Its impact was explosive and it launched the careers of the best
writers of the generation. As Thompson pioneered his Gonzo style, PJ
O'Rourke described his Holidays in Hell in places such as Manila, a
young Cameron Crowe went on the road with rock bands, Tom Wolfe wrote
the Brotherhood Of The Right Stuff (about Nasa's first seven
astronauts), and Annie Leibovitz took photos for the covers,
including the image of John Lennon curled up naked beside a fully
dressed Yoko Ono.
By the late Seventies when punk was the rage in the UK its
musical tastes began to seem anachronistic. Moving to New York in
1977, it lost some of its credibility when Thompson openly criticised
it for turning against marijuana, despite having embraced the drug in
its heyday.
Then, in the Nineties, under British editor John Needham, who made
his name at lads' mag FHM, it faced accusations that it was dumbing
down. But, through all this, the bi-weekly publication, which has a
readership of around 1.4 million, continued to provide a platform for
anti-establishment stories others wouldn't touch.
Michael Hastings' piece about McChrystal which claimed the
general's scalp before it hit the news stands and could be read
elsewhere before the magazine managed to get it up on its website
is firmly in the Rolling Stone tradition.
Based on conversations between McChrystal and his aides that took
place between April and mid-May, the piece shows them mocking and
criticising all the senior civilians in their chain of command. In
particular, aides were quoted suggesting McChrystal was
"disappointed" in a meeting with Obama, sneering at vice-president
Joe Biden ("Who's he?") and accusing US ambassador Karl Eikenberry
whose reticence over a request for more troops was leaked to the
press of covering his "flank" for the history books.
Hastings insists he did not set out to get McChrystal fired. "It was
to get people to say: 'Hey, what's going on in Afghanistan?' It's
often as if America doesn't realise it's fighting two wars."
Not everyone has lauded his work. One rival reporter in Kabul
dismissed the piece as "people bitching about Washington" and a Fox
commentator described him as "a rat in an eagle's nest". There have
even been accusations that Hastings who wrote How I Lost My Love In
Baghdad after his aid worker fiancée was blown up in a car bomb had
engaged in underhand tactics such as getting McChrystal and his aides
drunk or using quotes that were supposed to be "off the record". But
with McChrystal making no claims that any protocol was breached, this
seems unlikely.
Wright is as surprised as anyone else by McChrystal's remarks, not
because he is unused to soldiers letting down their guard, but
because he sees no purpose to it in this case. "Usually when someone
is trash talking or criticising the chain of command, that person
will have a strategy they will believe something is wrong and want
to improve it. What shocked me about the McChrystal article is that
he actually shares the same strategic objectives as the civilian
leadership, as Obama. If you have the same goals as your boss why
would your people be on the record making fun of them?" Wright asks.
But he is adamant that, whatever McChrystal's motives, the exposé
resulted from Hastings having time to bond with his subjects. Rolling
Stone's investment in reporters is rivalled in the US only by Vanity
Fair. And its ability to mesh music and politics (and low and high
culture) has never been successfully emulated in the UK, although,
arguably, the style of documentary-makers Nick Broomfield and Louis
Theroux is Gonzo journalism.
"I suppose you could say some style magazines of the past, such as
The Face, had an interest in politics," says media expert Professor
Brian McNair. "But it is true there is nothing in this country like
Rolling Stone. Perhaps that's because we have well-developed
broadsheet and quality newspapers which cover politics in depth. The
US has the likes of the New York Times and the Washington Post, but
nothing national, so maybe that explains the difference."
For Wright, however, Rolling Stone's unique format comes down, almost
entirely, to its owner. "Rolling Stone came out of a tradition from
the late Sixties early Seventies when people listened to music and
they thought they could change the world," he says. "The presumption
that Jann Wenner had was 'oh, they want to read about music and about
important news because they are engaged'.
"That's not true any more. I don't think young people feel like they
can change the world, and music is vapid and stupid, but Jann has
clung to this ideal
. Journalism thrives in Rolling Stone because of Wenner's vision."
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