tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/rolling-stone-6465/articlesRolling Stone – The Conversation2023-10-02T19:11:40Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138962023-10-02T19:11:40Z2023-10-02T19:11:40ZThe rise and ‘whimper-not-a-bang’ fall of Australia’s trailblazing rock press<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550221/original/file-20230926-17-uy2ape.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4000%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>People under 30 don’t need to care about – or even understand – this. But there really was a time when exposure to culture was mediated by curators who had far too much power over what we all saw, heard or experienced. </p>
<p>In the era before social media and widespread internet access, artists had no direct connection to their fanbases, and required whole distinct manifestations of media to communicate news of their activities, directions and products. </p>
<p>We had a film press, a television press, a literary press – and a music press. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Full Coverage – Samuel J. Fell (Monash University Press)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>I needed to read Samuel J. Fell’s <a href="https://publishing.monash.edu/product/full-coverage/">Full Coverage</a>, the first (and surely only) ever history of Australia’s rock press, for selfish reasons: I consider my tastes and values to have been significantly shaped by the phenomenon. </p>
<p>Over 300 pages, Fell surveys the development of local rock music coverage in (mainly national) magazines, stopping to inspect some of the eccentric and/or dedicated writers, editors and publishers who made the greatest impact along the way.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550198/original/file-20230926-15-w4cu54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550198/original/file-20230926-15-w4cu54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550198/original/file-20230926-15-w4cu54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550198/original/file-20230926-15-w4cu54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550198/original/file-20230926-15-w4cu54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550198/original/file-20230926-15-w4cu54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550198/original/file-20230926-15-w4cu54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550198/original/file-20230926-15-w4cu54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My first music writing was published in Vox, the short-lived tabloid “muzpaper”, in 1980 – and I flitted at the edges for more than a decade afterwards. </p>
<p>In a “journalism” career I was lucky enough to bail from a few years before the internet began to bite, I was more involved in teenage (largely, pop-oriented) colour magazines than in the out-and-out rock press in Australia. Nonetheless, I would read rock publications voraciously and I never passed up the opportunity to contribute.</p>
<p>There are a lot of people named in this book I have met, befriended or worked for, in my ten or more years working in publishing in Sydney in the 1980s. In that regard, Fell’s narrative has a strange, dreamlike quality for me. </p>
<p>Reading Full Coverage, I learned some interesting background and connections between particular writers, editors and publishers – I gained a new historical understanding of the field. There were also things that Fell failed (or perhaps chose not) to include. </p>
<h2>Molly, Lily and Go-Set</h2>
<p>After some courageous short-lived forays, the Australian music press started in earnest in 1966 with the Melbourne-based Go-Set. Set up by university students, whose only prior experience was Monash University’s paper, Go-Set quickly filled a need for information and connection among pop fans. </p>
<p>Enthusiastic writers like Lily Brett, Ian (Molly) Meldrum, Johnny Young and Douglas Panther conveyed the inside story of the lives of musicians and celebrities, while maintaining a particular accessibility for their “teens and twenties” readers. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550193/original/file-20230926-17-kkwpez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550193/original/file-20230926-17-kkwpez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550193/original/file-20230926-17-kkwpez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550193/original/file-20230926-17-kkwpez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550193/original/file-20230926-17-kkwpez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550193/original/file-20230926-17-kkwpez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550193/original/file-20230926-17-kkwpez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550193/original/file-20230926-17-kkwpez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meldrum’s famous tale of being told by <a href="https://theconversation.com/john-lennons-imagine-at-50-a-deceptively-simple-ballad-a-lasting-emblem-of-hope-167444">John Lennon</a> that the Beatles were breaking up (Meldrum didn’t quite take it in, and it wasn’t until someone at Go-Set listened to the interview tape he sent back from London that the story “broke”) isn’t in this book. </p>
<p>But Brett’s testimony of the global pop stars – <a href="https://theconversation.com/on-the-50th-anniversary-of-her-death-janis-joplin-still-ignites-147097">Janis Joplin</a>, the Mamas and the Papas, <a href="https://theconversation.com/50-years-ago-jimi-hendrixs-woodstock-anthem-expressed-the-hopes-and-fears-of-a-nation-120717">Jimi Hendrix</a> – she talked to one-to-one gives us a sense of the importance the magazine held for its readership. </p>
<p>Go-Set’s publisher, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Frazer">Philip Frazer</a>, went on, in a haphazard way, to bring a Rolling Stone franchise to Australia. </p>
<p>“Stone”, as Fell and his informants insist on calling it, has been running locally ever since. In its early days, it coexisted with some key 1970s and 1980s tabloids, namely <a href="https://collections.artscentremelbourne.com.au/#browse=enarratives.1834">Juke</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Australia_Magazine">Rock Australia Magazine</a>, popularly known as RAM. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hIg-1NBn2y8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Go-Set Four Corners.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the early 1990s, a substantial part of the Rolling Stone staff, including Toby Creswell and Lesa-Belle Furhagen, broke with its publisher Philip Keir and set up their own magazine, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juice_(Australian_magazine)">Juice</a>. Accounts vary among players about what led to the split. </p>
<p>Oddly, Fell muses on Juice’s similarity to the American <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(magazine)">Spin</a> for many pages, before he notes that a proportion of its editorial was directly licensed from that publication. This was the case to the degree that the Spin logo was on the cover of early issues!</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/molly-is-lacking-as-a-tv-show-but-millions-including-me-are-hooked-54471">Molly is lacking as a TV show but millions, including me, are hooked</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Street papers: ‘uniquely Australian’</h2>
<p>The next format to crash down all assumptions about best music journalism models were the “street papers”, which Fell suggests were a uniquely Australian creation. Their extensive advertising revenue from venues, record companies and related industries allowed these publications to be provided at no cost. </p>
<p>The street paper killed RAM and Juke, not by being anywhere near as good, but far, far cheaper. The finale of Full Coverage is the whimper-not-a-bang decline of music-based print media in the face of social media, mercifully hastened by the pillow-on-the-face of Covid. </p>
<p>Fell loves the “street papers”, and one gets the sense he would happily have written about them alone. He does concede a lot less time went into them editorially, compared to those that cost money – like Juke or RAM (or Vox!). </p>
<p>But he doesn’t spend a lot of time on the obvious additional truth that the street papers’ editorial positions tended to be driven by the advertising dollar, which meant negativity was almost always absent from reviews. Indeed, advertising was really the only way to guarantee a feature or review. </p>
<p>I am reminded of a time when the editor of a street paper I occasionally wrote for declared a special issue, in which all writers would be permitted to opine freely on anything they wanted. The plan was later abandoned.</p>
<p>Fell explains a lot in this broad history, though he too often takes his informants at their word, and uses their words as his basis, I suspect, to construct his narrative. </p>
<p>He probably had no choice, given the unavailability of archives. Most of the publishers I worked for had no respect at all for legislation requiring copies of all published material to be presented to the relevant state library and the NLA. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-pot-smoking-acid-gobbling-smart-arse-became-the-producer-behind-some-of-australias-greatest-music-205744">How a 'pot-smoking, acid-gobbling smart-arse' became the producer behind some of Australia's greatest music</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Undeniable soap operas</h2>
<p>He was surely dissuaded, probably by word-count considerations – but perhaps also by lawyers – from getting his hands dirty in the ins-and-outs of the personalities and behaviours of the individuals he’s writing about. What’s the word for respecting an author’s restraint, while wishing there was just a bit more goss within their pages? </p>
<p>Of course, there were many links between the producers of music magazines and the people they wrote about. By links, I don’t just mean romantic or domestic entanglements, though I do mean that, of course. There are also great, undeniable soap operas. </p>
<p>A public spat between <a href="https://theconversation.com/speaking-with-steve-kilbey-lead-singer-of-the-church-34751">Steve Kilbey</a> of The Church and music journalist <a href="https://theconversation.com/gudinski-by-stuart-coupe-is-a-fast-and-wild-tale-of-australias-music-industry-43838">Stuart Coupe</a> in the early 1980s springs to mind. </p>
<p>It would appear that Kilbey and Coupe spent a long time talking for a feature, during which Kilbey made some broad claims about his own genius. Coupe recorded the conversation and published some choice elements in RAM – to some derision from readers. (Though let’s be clear: Kilbey at his best is pretty good!) But no doubt there were hundreds more conflicts – some manufactured, others heartfelt – between artist and reporter/critic. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-under-the-milky-way-how-a-beautiful-accident-of-a-song-was-born-and-became-an-anthem-193095">Friday essay: Under the Milky Way – how a 'beautiful accident' of a song was born and became an anthem</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Similarly, Fell either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about the connection between the music press and TV, which was strong. Channel 0/10 shows, such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uptight_(TV_series)">Uptight</a> in the late 1960s, featured content and tie-ins with the “teens and twenties” magazine Go-Set. </p>
<p>Michael Gudinski’s failed foray with the early 1970s paper <a href="http://www.milesago.com/press/daily-planet.htm">(Daily) Planet</a> was repeated with a TV show, WROK, a decade later – in both cases, Gudinski failed to understand the difference between advertising and journalism. Nor does Fell mention <a href="https://youtu.be/cFS06jMlIio?si=v83a33rsgDKh_p56">the tragically hilarious “burial” of Go-Set</a> following its demise, broadcast on the ABC kids’ show Flashez in the mid-1970s.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cFS06jMlIio?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The ‘burial’ of Go Set, staged by Stephen McLean, Daryl Nugent and photographer Philip Morris in 1974.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then there are careers like that of radio announcer, pop singer and jockey <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Sutherland">Donnie Sutherland</a>. Fell remarks on Sutherland’s induction into the world of Go-Set, but doesn’t mention his subsequent 12-year career as host of Sounds on Channel 7 – which is how most readers would remember him. </p>
<p>Fell also touches on Countdown magazine briefly, as a tie-in between Australia’s best known and (still) best loved TV pop show. But he hardly mentions the magazine’s content: Countdown used its biggest advantage – that the show was incredibly popular and any magazine called Countdown was going to sell – to go outside musical coverage and engage with its readers’ lives, opinions and politics. </p>
<p>More generally, it needs to be noted that, of course, context can get out of control. Personally, though, I could have handled the sacrifice of some of the half-remembered accounts of ins and outs of owners and editors, in return for more discussion of the publications’ content and impact. </p>
<p>No doubt Fell has a life, and lives can easily be frittered away reading old music magazines. But discussion, for instance, of <a href="https://jennyvalentish.com/2014/08/jenny-interviews-jen-jewel-brown/">Jen Jewel Brown</a>’s piece for the early 1970s Daily Planet on the tribulations of being a woman writing about music would have revealed plenty. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pEt__MDNPJk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">AC/DC interviewed by Molly Meldrum on Countdown.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-punks-legacy-40-years-on-60633">Friday essay: punk's legacy, 40 years on</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Smash Hits and Rolling Stone</h2>
<p>Back to the topic of Countdown: Fell pays its competitor, Australian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smash_Hits">Smash Hits</a>, minimal notice. I worked for this magazine (primarily as features editor) between 1984 and 1991. While most definitely a music magazine, it really isn’t in Fell’s terrain. Its readers ranged from the very young to the mid-teens – they were more into “pop” than “rock”. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550191/original/file-20230926-25-7ehf99.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550191/original/file-20230926-25-7ehf99.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550191/original/file-20230926-25-7ehf99.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550191/original/file-20230926-25-7ehf99.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550191/original/file-20230926-25-7ehf99.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550191/original/file-20230926-25-7ehf99.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550191/original/file-20230926-25-7ehf99.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550191/original/file-20230926-25-7ehf99.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ebay</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But I do believe to suggest Smash Hits was “struggling” in the mid-to-late 1980s, as Fell does, is a misrepresentation: it had its ups and downs, but it was the national market leader in music magazines for at least ten years after its launch in 1984, outselling all others. In short, it was the leading music magazine of its era, and someone is feeding Fell misinformation. </p>
<p>That it sold the most is not an argument for the magazine’s quality, of course, though it had its moments. I mention this because it speaks once again to the problem with dependence on oral history: given the long-ago demise or sell-off of various publishers, historical sales figures are largely unattainable and subject to the vagaries of memory. Fell didn’t talk to anyone from (or even really about) Australian Smash Hits. </p>
<p>Which only leaves the elephant in the room. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550192/original/file-20230926-31-bshnrn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550192/original/file-20230926-31-bshnrn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550192/original/file-20230926-31-bshnrn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550192/original/file-20230926-31-bshnrn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550192/original/file-20230926-31-bshnrn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550192/original/file-20230926-31-bshnrn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550192/original/file-20230926-31-bshnrn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550192/original/file-20230926-31-bshnrn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rolling Stone has, of course, a 50-year history in Australia. Whereas Australian Smash Hits was often criticised for including content from its British parent, the first decade of Rolling Stone in this country was typically little more than a distillation of old cut-and-pastes from the American magazine. (Fell alludes to this, but doesn’t mind.) </p>
<p>Rolling Stone was often a shambles, and Fell appropriately gives the most space to its best era, under Kathy Bail’s editorship, when a few great moments – the Paul Keating cover most of all – brought it dangerously close to relevance. </p>
<p>Fell discusses the defection of key players, which led to Bail’s recruitment by publisher Philip Keir. And he gives credit to Keir and Bail for recognising the importance the internet was going to play in media, moving towards the 21st century. </p>
<h2>‘I thought it was sci-fi nonsense’</h2>
<p>No one could have imagined the changes afoot, of course, but I take my hat off to Keir for seeing it more clearly than most of us. I spent time with him for a few weeks in the mid-1990s while he employed me to work up another publication for his stable – and he availed me of his knowledge of, and passion for, the possibilities of online publishing. </p>
<p>I was impressed that he believed it, but I thought it was sci-fi nonsense. In less than ten years, as you know, the whole landscape of print media was lacerated. </p>
<p>Of course, there is still a music press: look at the preposterously overblown global influence of <a href="https://pitchfork.com/">Pitchfork</a>, for instance. In Australia, the music press only takes print form in the most boutique of varieties, <a href="https://efficientspace.bandcamp.com/merch/enthusiasms-issue-02-issue-03-bundle">like Melbourne magazine Efficient Space</a>. A whole social realm, a way of understanding a culture, is gone. Is that bad? </p>
<p>Ironically, online resources can help us understand whether it is or not – for instance, the University of Wollongong’s repository of the best 1970s-80s rock magazine of them all, Adelaide’s <a href="https://archivesonline.uow.edu.au/nodes/view/3493/">Roadrunner</a>. </p>
<p>If Fell’s book doesn’t entirely convey why Australian rock journalism was worth the candle, the six years of Donald Robertson’s witty, passionate, innovative paper just might.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213896/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Nichols does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>David Nichols was a music journalist for more than a decade, starting in 1980. Samuel J. Fell’s new history of Australian rock writing takes him down memory lane.David Nichols, Professor of Urban Planning, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2100102023-08-22T12:17:45Z2023-08-22T12:17:45ZTotally Wired by Paul Gorman is a deft potted history of the music press – but it doesn’t tell the whole story<p>Musicians have long had their careers captured for posterity by the music press. Yet, the spotlight has rarely been turned around to the journalists who write these stories. Totally Wired is a vivid oral history of music journalists in the UK and US. </p>
<p>Paul Gorman began collecting these interviews over 20 years ago, publishing them as <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/In_Their_Own_Write/1U4UAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=In+Their+Own+Write:+Adventures+in+the+Music+Press&dq=In+Their+Own+Write:+Adventures+in+the+Music+Press&printsec=frontcover">In Their Own Write: Adventures in the Music Press</a> (2001). Concentrating particularly on the period from the 1950s to the late 1990s, it was presented as a thematically arranged set of conversations between some leading journalists, discussing the so-called “golden era” of music journalism (1950 to the late 2000s). </p>
<p>Totally Wired is a labour of love and a rich complement to its precursor. It draws on previously published histories and biographies by music journalists, including <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Melody_Maker_History_of_20th_Century_Pop.html?id=PhBpQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Melody Maker: History of 20th Century Popular Music</a> by Nick Johnstone (1999), <a href="https://www.pavilionbooks.com/products/the-history-of-the-nme-high-times-and-low-lives-at-the-worlds-most-famous-music-magazine-pat-long-9781907554483/">The History of NME</a> by Pat Long (2012) and <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Rolling_Stone_Magazine.html?id=uqNZAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">The Rolling Stone Magazine</a> by Robert Draper (1990). </p>
<p>Though it makes for dense reading in places, the attention to detail will delight those in or closely connected to music journalism – though the same readers will likely bemoan the inevitable omissions. Gorman gives a potted history, not just of the expected long-running music publications (such as Rolling Stone, NME, Melody Maker, Q) but their intersections with the style press (such as The Face, i-D), zines (Sniffin’ Glue) and several other short-lived yet influential publications (New Sounds, New Styles).</p>
<h2>Press and prejudice</h2>
<p>Gorman also explores misogyny within the music press, which noted jazz critic <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9FeYEAAAQBAJ&pg=PP50&lpg=PP50&dq=%22the+music+press+is+a+bastion+of+male+chauvinism%22&source=bl&ots=OT7d3Wetq-&sig=ACfU3U1HbwvEN_8imxhUJn-pBrzbDnm_nQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiCzabGw6yAAxWNUkEAHZaRCzYQ6AF6BAgJEAM#v=onepage&q=%22the%20music%20press%20is%20a%20bastion%20of%20male%20chauvinism%22&f=false">Val Wilmer called</a> “a bastion of male chauvinism” in 1989. He also covers racism, including the overt bigotry in early issues of Melody Maker, and homophobia, in discussion with former NME editor <a href="https://www.neilspencer.com/neil-spencer/">Neil Spencer</a>. </p>
<p>Engagingly, Gorman also reminds readers of forgotten trailblazing editors. There’s <a href="https://www.gloriastavers.com">Gloria Stavers</a> (editor-in-chief of 16 Magazine), whose careful attention to what her teen readers wanted resulted in an eye-wateringly enviable circulation figure. And then there’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jul/16/alan-lewis-obituary">Alan Lewis</a>, who oversaw Kerrang!, Vox and Loaded, and who “championed black music”.</p>
<p>Gorman deftly captures the personalities of the scene, from those who embodied the rock’n’roll lifestyles they wrote about to those who found the environment more challenging. This includes quieter characters, such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jul/12/fred-dellar-obituary">Fred Dellar</a>, supposedly the nicest person in music journalism, as well as those who straddled academia and journalism (including <a href="https://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/profile/prof-simon-frith">Simon Frith</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/jan/14/dave-laing-obituary">Dave Laing</a> and <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of-advanced-studies/professor-paul-gilroy">Paul Gilroy</a>). </p>
<h2>Problems</h2>
<p>Despite what the publisher, Thames & Hudson, claim, this book can’t be “definitive”, because some of the key voices in music journalism during this period are no longer alive to share their perspectives. And any magazine or paper is always a collaboration – some of the art directors are mentioned for notable redesigns, but what of the less visible influences of photo, production and sub-editors, whose roles as gatekeepers of the music industry have never been captured?</p>
<p>Though the book’s blurb says it spans the same period as its predecessor, that does Gorman’s graft a disservice, as it opens in 1926 and its epilogue considers the impact of the pandemic, with a nod of acknowledgement to online successors. </p>
<p>If oral history is your bag then you might supplement this read with Dave Laing’s <a href="https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/publications/unwritten-an-oral-history-of-uk-popular-music-studies">Unsung: An Oral History of the UK Music Business</a> (2019) and the proliferation of autobiographical books from music journalists (notably <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/too-late-to-stop-now-9781448218257/">Allan Jones</a>, <a href="https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/mark-ellen/rock-stars-stole-my-life/9781444775518/">Mark Ellen</a>, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/235508/david-hepworth">David Hepworth</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jul/10/paper-cuts-ted-kessler-review-how-i-destroyed-the-british-music-press-and-other-misadventures">Ted Kessler</a>) which add a more human dimension.</p>
<p>Though the printed music press continues to dwindle, Totally Wired reminds us that the relationship between music and words remains as intoxicating as ever.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210010/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paula Hearsum does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Though it makes for dense reading in places, the attention to detail will delight those in or closely connected to music journalism.Paula Hearsum, Principal Lecturer, School of Art and Media, University of Brighton, University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1309802020-04-10T12:12:04Z2020-04-10T12:12:04ZInside the Beatles’ messy breakup, 50 years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326989/original/file-20200409-165427-i79n2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=100%2C8%2C1658%2C1069&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who broke up with whom?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-beatles-celebrate-the-completion-of-their-new-album-sgt-news-photo/3297187?adppopup=true">Anurag Papolu/The Conversation via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty years ago, when Paul McCartney announced he had left the Beatles, the news dashed the hopes of millions of fans, while fueling false reunion rumors that persisted well into the new decade. </p>
<p>In a press release on April 10, 1970 for his first solo album, “<a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/people/paul-mccartney/albums/mccartney/">McCartney</a>,” he leaked his intention to leave. In doing so, he shocked his three bandmates.</p>
<p>The Beatles had symbolized the great communal spirit of the era. How could they possibly come apart? </p>
<p>Few at the time were aware of the underlying fissures. The power struggles in the group had been mounting at least since their manager, Brian Epstein, died in August of 1967. </p>
<h2>‘Paul Quits the Beatles’</h2>
<p>Was McCartney’s “announcement” official? His album appeared on April 17, and its press packet included a mock interview. In it, McCartney <a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/1970/04/10/paul-mccartney-announces-the-beatles-split/">is asked</a>, “Are you planning a new album or single with the Beatles?”</p>
<p>His response? “No.” </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Daily Mirror took McCartney at his word.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Daily Mirror</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But he didn’t say whether the separation might prove permanent. The Daily Mirror nonetheless framed its headline conclusively: “Paul Quits the Beatles.” </p>
<p>The others worried this could hurt sales and sent Ringo as a peacemaker to McCartney’s London home to talk him down from releasing his solo album ahead of the band’s “Let It Be” album and film, which were slated to come out in May. Without any press present, McCartney <a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/1970/03/31/paul-mccartney-ringo-starr-letter-john-lennon-george-harrison-let-it-be/">shouted Ringo off his front stoop</a>.</p>
<h2>Lennon had kept quiet</h2>
<p>Lennon, who had been active outside the band for months, felt particularly betrayed.</p>
<p>The previous September, soon after the band released “Abbey Road,” he <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/why-the-beatles-broke-up-113403/">had asked</a> his bandmates for a “divorce.” But the others convinced him not to go public to prevent disrupting some delicate contract negotiations. </p>
<p>Still, Lennon’s departure seemed imminent: He had played the Toronto Rock ‘n’ Roll Festival with his Plastic Ono Band in September 1969, and on Feb. 11, 1970, he performed a new solo track, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZQny1XxOdI">Instant Karma</a>,” on the popular British TV show “Top of the Pops.” Yoko Ono sat behind him, knitting while blindfolded by a sanitary napkin. </p>
<p>In fact, Lennon behaved more and more like a solo artist, until McCartney countered with his own eponymous album. He wanted Apple to release this solo debut alongside the group’s new album, “<a href="https://www.thebeatles.com/album/let-it-be">Let It Be</a>,” to dramatize the split. </p>
<p>By beating Lennon to the announcement, McCartney controlled the story and its timing, and undercut the other three’s interest in keeping it under wraps as new product hit stores.</p>
<p>Ray Connolly, a reporter at the Daily Mail, knew Lennon well enough to ring him up for comment. When I interviewed Connolly in 2008, he told me about their conversation. </p>
<p>Lennon was dumbfounded and enraged by the news. He had let Connolly in on his secret about leaving the band at his Montreal Bed-In in December 1969, but asked him to keep it quiet. Now he lambasted Connolly for not leaking it sooner. </p>
<p>“Why didn’t you write it when I told you in Canada at Christmas!” he exclaimed to Connolly, who reminded him that the conversation had been off the record. “You’re the f–king journalist, Connolly, not me,” snorted Lennon. </p>
<p>“We were all hurt [McCartney] didn’t tell us what he was going to do,” <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/lennon-remembers-part-one-186693/">Lennon later told Rolling Stone</a>. “Jesus Christ! He gets all the credit for it! I was a fool not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record…”</p>
<h2>It all falls apart</h2>
<p>This public fracas had been bubbling under the band’s cheery surface for years. Timing and sales concealed deeper arguments about creative control and the return to live touring. </p>
<p>In January 1969, the group had started a roots project tentatively titled “Get Back.” It was supposed to be a back-to-the-basics recording without the artifice of studio trickery. But the whole venture was shelved as a new recording, “Abbey Road,” took shape.</p>
<p>When “Get Back” was eventually revived, Lennon – behind McCartney’s back – brought in American producer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phil-Spector">Phil Spector</a>, best known for girl group hits like “Be My Baby,” to salvage the project. But this album was supposed to be band only – not embroidered with added strings and voices – and McCartney fumed when Spector added a female choir to his song “The Long and Winding Road.” </p>
<p>“Get Back” – which was renamed “Let it Be” – nonetheless moved forward. Spector mixed the album, and a cut of the feature film was readied for summer. </p>
<p>McCartney’s announcement and release of his solo album effectively short-circuited the plan. By announcing the breakup, he launched his solo career in advance of “<a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/let-it-be/">Let It Be</a>,” and nobody knew how it might disrupt the official Beatles’ project. </p>
<p>Throughout the remainder of 1970, fans watched in disbelief as the “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0HfT_a3bIw">Let It Be</a>” movie portrayed the hallowed Beatles circling musical doldrums, bickering about arrangements and killing time running through oldies. The film finished with an ironic triumph – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/01/30/beatles-played-london-rooftop-it-wound-up-being-their-last-show/">the famous live set on the roof of their Apple headquarters</a> during which the band played “Get Back,” “Don’t Let Me Down” and a joyous “One After 909.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NCtzkaL2t_Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Beatles played their last live show in a January 1969 concert staged for the documentary ‘Let It Be.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The album, released on May 8, performed well and spawned two hit singles – the title track and “The Long and Winding Road” – but the group never recorded together again.</p>
<p>Their fans hoped against hope that four solo Beatles might someday find their way back to the thrills that had enchanted audiences for seven years. These rumors seemed most promising when <a href="https://longreads.com/2019/06/24/took-you-by-surprise-john-and-pauls-lost-reunion/">McCartney joined Lennon for a Los Angeles recording session</a> in 1974 with Stevie Wonder. But while they all played on one another’s solo efforts, the four never played a session together again. </p>
<p>At the beginning of 1970, autumn’s “Come Together”/“Something” single from “Abbey Road” still floated in the Billboard top 20; the “Let It Be” album and film helped extend fervor beyond what the papers reported. For a long time, the myth of the band endured on radio playlists and across several greatest hits compilations, but when John Lennon sang “The dream is over…” at the end of his own 1970 solo debut, “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/john-lennon-plastic-ono-band-108294/">John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band</a>,” few grasped the lyrics’ implacable truth. </p>
<p>Fans and critics chased every sliver of hope for the “next” Beatles, but few came close to recreating the band’s magic. There were prospects – first bands like Three Dog Night, the Flaming Groovies, Big Star and the Raspberries; later, Cheap Trick, the Romantics and the Knack – but these groups only aimed at the same heights the Beatles had conquered, and none sported the range, songwriting ability or ineffable chemistry of the Liverpool quartet.</p>
<p>We’ve been living in the world without Beatles ever since.</p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130980/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Riley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Unbridled ambition and bruised egos created an irreparable fissure.Tim Riley, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director for Journalism, Emerson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/869102017-11-08T11:19:07Z2017-11-08T11:19:07ZThe magazine that inspired Rolling Stone<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193610/original/file-20171107-1055-1k844nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'When you look back on it, where else would those articles appear? The Saturday Evening Post?'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Lehr/The Conversation via flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 50th anniversary of Rolling Stone magazine has arrived, and not without fanfare. Joe Hagan’s <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=m4EkDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=sticky%20fingers%20joe%20hagan&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">biography</a> of co-founder Jann Wenner appeared in October to stellar reviews, and earlier this month, HBO aired <a href="http://variety.com/2017/music/reviews/tv-review-rolling-stone-stories-from-the-edge-1202607495/">Alex Gibney’s documentary film</a> about the magazine’s history. Wenner’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/17/business/rolling-stone-magazine-sale.html">announcement</a> that he was planning to sell his company’s stake in Rolling Stone also prompted a flurry of retrospective tributes.</p>
<p>Conceived during the Summer of Love in 1967, Rolling Stone was always a creature of the San Francisco counterculture. From the outset, the magazine touted Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and other San Francisco bands. Well before that, co-founder Ralph J. Gleason was featuring the Haight-Ashbury’s vibrant music scene in his San Francisco Chronicle column. </p>
<p>But Rolling Stone’s identity can also be traced to two other sources: Berkeley’s culture of dissent and Ramparts magazine, the legendary San Francisco muckraker. </p>
<p>The Berkeley influence was strong and direct. The magazine’s early staff writers were steeped in Berkeley’s ardent campus activism, and their views on politics, drugs and music informed the magazine’s coverage. Wenner wrote a music column for the student newspaper and covered the free speech movement for a local radio station. Even more significant for Wenner, perhaps, was the example of Gleason, who combined an impressive body of music criticism with public support for student activists. Wenner spent hours at Gleason’s Berkeley home, soaking up his insights on music and journalism.</p>
<p>Rolling Stone’s Berkeley roots were important, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=5jf6K9MMcSUC&lpg=PP1&dq=a%20bomb%20in%20every%20issue&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">but the Ramparts influence ran even deeper</a>. Ramparts was by no means a hippie magazine, but its rebellious spirit, flair for publicity and professional design would all leave their mark on Wenner and Gleason’s fledgling magazine. </p>
<h2>A bomb in every issue</h2>
<p>Founded in 1962 as a Catholic literary quarterly, Ramparts initially ran articles by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Merton">Thomas Merton</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard_Griffin">John Howard Griffin</a> and other Catholic intellectuals. But when a young Warren Hinckle became editor in 1964, he converted Ramparts into a monthly, shifted its focus to politics and hired Dugald Stermer as art director. </p>
<p>Hinckle also recruited Robert Scheer, a former graduate student at UC Berkeley’s Center for Chinese Studies, to write about the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Scheer and his colleagues challenged U.S. government pronouncements about the war and routinely lampooned the mainstream media’s Vietnam coverage. </p>
<p>Once Hinckle, Stermer and Scheer joined forces, Ramparts achieved liftoff. It adopted a cutting-edge design, forged links to the Black Panther Party, exposed CIA activities and published the diaries of Che Guevara and staff writer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldridge_Cleaver">Eldridge Cleaver</a>.</p>
<p>A Ramparts photo-essay, “<a href="http://www.unz.org/Pub/Ramparts-1967jan-00045">The Children of Vietnam</a>,” persuaded Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to speak out against the war, and the title of a Time magazine article about Ramparts, “<a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843165,00.html">A Bomb in Every Issue</a>,” described the muckraker’s explosive impact. In 1966, Ramparts earned the George Polk Award for excellence in magazine journalism, and its circulation climbed to almost 250,000. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193600/original/file-20171107-1061-bz4mys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193600/original/file-20171107-1061-bz4mys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193600/original/file-20171107-1061-bz4mys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193600/original/file-20171107-1061-bz4mys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193600/original/file-20171107-1061-bz4mys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193600/original/file-20171107-1061-bz4mys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193600/original/file-20171107-1061-bz4mys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193600/original/file-20171107-1061-bz4mys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From left to right: Ramparts magazine editor Warren Hinckle, assistant managing editor Sol Stern and writer Robert Scheer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-CA-USA-APHS285245-Editor-Warren-Hin-/a7947b66921a41fcad87291acf32b233/1/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ramparts also became a seedbed for Rolling Stone. Gleason, who was a contributing editor at Ramparts, secured a job for Wenner at the magazine’s spinoff newspaper, the Sunday Ramparts. While there, Wenner picked up layout ideas from Stermer and encountered the work of Hunter S. Thompson, whose bestselling book about the Hells Angels appeared in 1967. Wenner also learned the value of showmanship from the free-spending Hinckle, who frequently echoed playwright George M. Cohan’s <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ur3pu3KGNK0C&pg=PA621&lpg=PA621&dq=%22Whatever+you+do,+kid,+always+serve+it+with+a+little+dressing.%22&source=bl&ots=WYuz43fVCl&sig=0UQq8hB9eEwCmBKapqVzzfELtkY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj64eyF4qzXAhVI6CYKHVsNCNIQ6AEINzAD#v=onepage&q=%22Whatever%20you%20do%2C%20kid%2C%20always%20serve%20it%20with%20a%20little%20dressing.%22&f=false">motto</a> “Whatever you do, kid, always serve it with a little dressing.”</p>
<p>Ironically, Hinckle played an indirect role in the creation of Rolling Stone. Gleason had planned to write about the Summer of Love at Ramparts, but Hinckle ran his own cover article, “<a href="http://www.unz.org/Pub/Ramparts-1967mar-00005?View=PDF">A Social History of the Hippies</a>,” in the March 1967 issue without informing him. A furious Gleason resigned from the magazine, and Wenner lost his job when Hinckle shut down the Sunday Ramparts. That summer, the two men began working on their own publication. By alienating Gleason, laying off Wenner and demonstrating that a “<a href="https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/fall-2009-constant-change/radical-slick">radical slick</a>” had broad appeal, Hinckle cleared the way for Rolling Stone.</p>
<p>Despite reaching a broad audience, Ramparts never stabilized its finances. After running through two private fortunes, it filed for bankruptcy in 1969. Hinckle left to start Scanlan’s Monthly, where he paired Thompson with illustrator <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Steadman">Ralph Steadman</a> to cover the Kentucky Derby; <a href="http://www.gonzogallery.com/books/scanlans-monthly-issue-no-4-the-kentucky-derby">that article</a> is now considered the first example of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzo_journalism">gonzo journalism</a>.</p>
<h2>The voice of its generation</h2>
<p>Rolling Stone’s first issue appeared in November 1967, but the magazine didn’t come into its own until 1969. </p>
<p>In December of that year, the notorious Altamont free concert <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-altamont-festival-brings-the-1960s-to-a-violent-end">devolved into lethal chaos</a>. Several Rolling Stone staff writers witnessed the mayhem, much of which was attributed to Hells Angels, but other media outlets missed the story. Gleason insisted that the magazine cover Altamont as if it were World War II, and its “<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-rolling-stones-disaster-at-altamont-let-it-bleed-19700121">Let It Bleed</a>” issue landed Rolling Stone a National Magazine Award for Specialized Journalism. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193602/original/file-20171107-1032-1wqxxm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193602/original/file-20171107-1032-1wqxxm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193602/original/file-20171107-1032-1wqxxm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193602/original/file-20171107-1032-1wqxxm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193602/original/file-20171107-1032-1wqxxm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193602/original/file-20171107-1032-1wqxxm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193602/original/file-20171107-1032-1wqxxm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193602/original/file-20171107-1032-1wqxxm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rolling Stone writer Hunter S. Thompson takes notes while listening to testimony at a trial in West Palm Beach, Flaorida in 1982.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-FL-USA-APHS903-Hunter-S-Thompson/2cee9cc0e04f42819ddc50ef8dbd47c6/2/0">Ray Fairall/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Having established itself as “<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/how-rolling-stone-shaped-narratives-of-woodstock-altamont-w464690">the voice of its generation</a>,” Rolling Stone continued its ascent. After Scanlan’s tanked in 1971, Wenner recruited Thompson and Steadman, published their most notable work, and turned Thompson into a cultural celebrity. Wenner also hired Annie Liebovitz as the magazine’s chief photographer in 1973. </p>
<p>Gleason <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/04/archives/ralph-j-gleason-jazz-critic-dead-coast-writer-and-editor-58-was.html?_r=0">died of a heart attack in 1975</a>, the same year Ramparts closed its doors for good. Two years later, Rolling Stone decamped for New York City. Although Rolling Stone’s reputation waxed and waned for decades, it retained its ability to break big stories. In 2008, staff writer Matt Taibbi’s political commentary earned Rolling Stone a National Magazine Award, and his <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405">2010 takedown of Goldman Sachs</a> rattled Wall Street. Since then, the magazine has collected two Polk Awards for stories on the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. </p>
<p>Rolling Stone’s overall record is decidedly mixed. (Consider, for example, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/business/media/rape-uva-rolling-stone-frat.html">its misbegotten account</a> of rape culture at the University of Virginia, which appeared in 2014.) But as <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=5jf6K9MMcSUC&pg=PT6&lpg=PT6&dq=%22When+you+look+back+on+it,+where+else+would+those+articles+appear?+The+Saturday+Evening+Post?%22&source=bl&ots=JX0pQSl92o&sig=45AKsuRsKZvXbwogpVQci9iLIsA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwil27GJ7qzXAhVC7CYKHWx7BkcQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=%22When%20you%20look%20back%20on%20it%2C%20where%20else%20would%20those%20articles%20appear%3F%20The%20Saturday%20Evening%20Post%3F%22&f=false">one Ramparts staff writer observed</a> after that magazine perished, “When you look back on it, where else would those articles appear? The Saturday Evening Post?” </p>
<p>So it is with Rolling Stone: No other rock magazine could have matched its coverage of the Manson family or the Patty Hearst saga. For all its flaws, Rolling Stone accomplished a rare feat. Like Ramparts, it created a distinctive niche in the national media ecology; unlike its precursor, it maintained that niche for five decades.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86910/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Richardson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ramparts started as a Catholic literary magazine. But when Warren Hinckle took the helm, he developed a layout, voice and rebellious spirit that Rolling Stone would go on to mimic.Peter Richardson, Coordinator, American Studies, San Francisco State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/813882017-08-15T22:41:15Z2017-08-15T22:41:15ZQuiet Canadian, ugly American: Does racism differ north of the border?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182168/original/file-20170815-28964-9zqby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People shouting and yelling slogans during a protest in front of the US Consulate to denounce Donald Trump's immigration policies on January 30, 2017 in Toronto, Canada.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 250px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/quiet-canadian" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>In the aftermath of Charlottesville, it’s worth asking: Are Canadians really less racist than Americans? </p>
<p>A recent issue of <em>Rolling Stone</em> magazine — with a photo of a smiling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the cover - asks: <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/justin-trudeau-canadian-prime-minister-free-worlds-best-hope-w494098">“Why can’t he be our president?”</a> It’s just the latest example of the global media’s current fascination with Trudeau and Canada and their supposed stark contrast to Donald Trump and the United States.</p>
<p>As a Canadian scholar at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, I’ve watched with fascination for months as media pundits both abroad and back home have promoted the idea of “Canadian exceptionalism.” </p>
<p>They argue that Canadians are especially tolerant, diverse and committed to multiculturalism. Many believe that Canada —with our self-described feminist prime minister and our compassionate approach to refugees — should show other countries how it’s done. </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://thewalrus.ca/canada-in-the-age-of-donald-trump/"><em>the Walrus</em></a>, author Stephen Marche argued that Canada is the last defender of multiculturalism on Earth. Canadian novelist Charles Foran claimed that Canada is a “post-nationalist state.” </p>
<p>“Call it post-nationalism, or just a new model of belonging,” he wrote in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/04/the-canada-experiment-is-this-the-worlds-first-postnational-country"><em>the Guardian</em></a>. “Canada may yet be of help in what is guaranteed to be the difficult year to come.” </p>
<p>More recently, Adam Gopnik wrote in <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/15/we-could-have-been-canada"><em>the New Yorker</em></a>: “Canada is the model liberal country.”</p>
<p>But pundits are forgetting that historical circumstances — rather than an exceptional tendency to be nicer or more tolerant — are what truly made Canada what it is today.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180633/original/file-20170801-4118-pvrqjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180633/original/file-20170801-4118-pvrqjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180633/original/file-20170801-4118-pvrqjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180633/original/file-20170801-4118-pvrqjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180633/original/file-20170801-4118-pvrqjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180633/original/file-20170801-4118-pvrqjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180633/original/file-20170801-4118-pvrqjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Justin Trudeau appears on the cover of Rolling Stone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Martin Schoeller/Rolling Stone)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Myopic gaze’ from Americans</h2>
<p>In Gopnik’s <em>New Yorker</em> essay, “<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/15/we-could-have-been-canada">We Could Have Been Canada</a>,” he wonders why Canadians are not more similar to Americans. After all, both countries were settled by Europeans who relied on Indigenous knowledge about the land. Indigenous peoples in both places also taught settlers how to live amid different cultures and identities. So why did multiculturalism and liberality supposedly take hold in one place, but not the other? </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.opencanada.org/features/canadian-exceptionalism/">writers</a> believe the key difference is the two different systems of government in Canada and the United States — a republic south of the border versus Canada’s constitutional monarchy — and the circumstances in which those governments emerged and evolved. Americans birthed their nation-state out of violent disobedience; Canadians, out of a conference on Confederation. </p>
<p>Gopnik agrees. He blames the American Revolution for denying Americans the opportunity to end slavery “more peacefully, and sooner.” Americans, he says, could have developed their country in an orderly and peaceful fashion, as Canada supposedly did. </p>
<p>But historians know this is a simplistic narrative. In <a href="https://earlycanadianhistory.ca/2017/05/29/the-american-gaze-adam-gopniks-canada/">Borealia</a>, a blog about early Canadian history, Jerry Bannister, an associate professor of history at Dalhousie University, writes: “American liberals’ gaze towards Canada may be rose-coloured, but more than anything it’s myopic.” </p>
<p>Gopnik assumes that without the American Revolution, slavery would have ended in 1833 when the House of Commons passed a bill to abolish slavery in the British Empire. </p>
<p>Perhaps so. But maybe not. And even if it did, that doesn’t mean Canadians are any less racist. </p>
<h2>Critical differences</h2>
<p>It’s a common myth that Canada didn’t have slavery. It did. As historians like <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469613864/bonds-of-alliance/">Brett Rushforth</a>, <a href="http://www.vehiculepress.com/q.php?EAN=9781550653274">Marcel Trudel</a> and <a href="https://thewalrus.ca/the-canadian-narrative-about-slavery-is-wrong/">Charmaine Nelson</a> point out in their scholarship, thousands of Indigenous people and enslaved Africans were held captive in Canada by merchants, traders and settlers. </p>
<p>Canada had slavery. But because of the colder climate, it did not have the conditions to grow profitable crops that relied on slave labour, including sugar, rice, tobacco and cotton. Consequently, Canada never developed a slave system akin to the entrenched and all-encompassing institution that many Americans implemented and protected for so long. </p>
<p>As in Canada, white settlers in the U.S. invaded Indigenous lands. But unlike in Canada, those people then settled that land with a significant population of enslaved Africans and African-Americans. This is a critical difference between the two countries. </p>
<p>Even as slavery bolstered the American economy, founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson recognized that it would be difficult for future generations to create a multicultural nation from one founded on chattel slavery and settler colonialism. </p>
<p>Much of the white supremacy and xenophobia that Canadians deride in American culture, and overlook in our own, can be traced to the racism that developed alongside the federally protected slave system in the U.S. Given this history, it’s not surprising that the overwhelming majority of white voters in former slave states voted for Trump. </p>
<p>As Joseph Crespino, a historian at Emory University, notes in his book <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8411.html"><em>In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution</em></a>, white southerners have succeeded in shaping the United States based on their own values. </p>
<p>Canadians are also fortunate to have avoided trying to claim a mantle of exceptionalism, as Americans have done for so long. From the very beginning, Americans believed that they had a duty to spread, or impose, their values on others; many still do. Canada hasn’t shared that belief.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182022/original/file-20170814-12228-tnccsd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182022/original/file-20170814-12228-tnccsd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=109&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182022/original/file-20170814-12228-tnccsd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=109&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182022/original/file-20170814-12228-tnccsd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=109&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182022/original/file-20170814-12228-tnccsd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182022/original/file-20170814-12228-tnccsd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182022/original/file-20170814-12228-tnccsd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trudeau sent this tweet out on Sunday August 13 in the aftermath of Charlottesville racist violence.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Puritan piety</h2>
<p>The idea of “American exceptionalism” can be traced to the arrival of Puritan settlers in Massachusetts in 1620 who promoted the idea of a white American settlement as the “city upon the hill.” Puritans hoped that their piety would serve as an example to the supposedly corrupt, luxurious Europeans and “savage” Native Americans. </p>
<p>The 1776 Declaration of Independence, and America’s victory in the War of Independence, further spurred American exceptionalism, as did key 19th-century concepts like the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/manifest-destiny">Manifest Destiny</a>, which declared that American colonization of North America was justified and inevitable. </p>
<p>But the hubris of American exceptionalism has rendered the country rife with hypocrisy. In the 20th century, critics noted that the self-described “leader of the free world” was defeating fascism in Europe while propping up racial segregation at home. </p>
<p>The idea that Americans needed to spread liberty and democracy around the world led the country into catastrophic conflicts in Vietnam and Iraq. At home, it helped promote the cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples in residential schools, which Canada also enacted. </p>
<p>As the counter-protests in Charlottesville and against Trump this week demonstrate, many Americans recognize their nation’s racism and bigotry, and are working to show their skeptical countrymen that diversity is an asset. </p>
<h2>Look inward</h2>
<p>This kind of work only happens when Americans drop the self-congratulatory plaudits, look inward, and acknowledge their own flaws, which is exactly what exceptionalism discourages. Instead of asking: “How can we be better?” exceptionalism asks: “How are we the best?”</p>
<p>Canadians know that Canada can be better. It’s nonsensical to suggest that Canadians know compassion better than any country when international agencies like <a href="https://www.amnesty.ca/news/public-statements/joint-press-release/un-human-rights-report-shows-that-canada-is-failing">Amnesty International</a> and the UN Human Rights Commission slam Canada for failing to alleviate the systematic discrimination of Indigenous peoples, and especially violence against Indigenous women and girls. </p>
<p>Canadians have a tendency not to be less racist than Americans, but less loud about it. As Charmaine Nelson, a professor of art history at McGill University, wrote recently in <a href="https://thewalrus.ca/the-canadian-narrative-about-slavery-is-wrong/"><em>the Walrus</em></a>, Canadians are “more insidious and covert” in their racism. This is where the notion of exceptionalism fails. </p>
<p>There is much to celebrate about Canada, which undoubtedly remains more tolerant and just than many countries. But Canadian patriotism should be about gratitude, not hubris. </p>
<p>Gratitude appreciates good fortune and breaks down pride. By taking off the blinders and revealing our collective ugliness, of which there is a lot right now, a Canadian patriotism rooted in gratitude can help initiate progressive change —which is exactly what Canada, as wonderful a country as it is, still needs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81388/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa J. Gismondi received funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>Media pundits are promoting Canada as exceptional in its tolerance and diversity but the truth is, Canadians have a tendency not to be not less racist than Americans, but to be less loud about it.Melissa J. Gismondi, Journalist, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/597202016-06-08T03:54:49Z2016-06-08T03:54:49ZAre pop stars destined to die young?<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/03/arts/music/prince-death-overdose-fentanyl.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news">Prince’s autopsy</a> has determined that the artist died of an accidental overdose of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. The news comes on the heels of the death of former Megadeth drummer Nick Menza, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/05/22/us/ap-us-obit-megadeth-drummer.html">who collapsed on stage and died in late May</a>. </p>
<p>Indeed, it seems as though before we can even finish mourning the loss of one pop star, another falls. There’s no shortage of groundbreaking artists who die prematurely, whether it’s Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley or Hank Williams. </p>
<p>As a physician, I’ve begun to wonder: Is being a superstar incompatible with a long, healthy life? Are there certain conditions that are more likely to cause a star’s demise? And finally, what might be some of the underlying reasons for these early deaths? </p>
<p>To find out the answer to each of these questions, I analyzed the 252 individuals who made Rolling Stone’s list of the <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-artists-of-all-time-19691231">100 greatest artists</a> of the rock & roll era.</p>
<h2>More than their share of accidents</h2>
<p>To date, 82 of the 252 members of this elite group have died. </p>
<p>There were six homicides, which occurred for a range of reasons, from the psychiatric obsession that led to the shooting of John Lennon to the planned “hits” on rappers Tupac Shakur and Jam Master Jay. There’s still <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sam-cooke-dies-under-suspicious-circumstances-in-la">a good deal of controversy</a> about the shooting of Sam Cooke by a female hotel manager (who was likely protecting a prostitute who had robbed Cooke). Al Jackson Jr., the renowned drummer with Booker T & the MGs, was shot in the back five times in 1975 by a burglar <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/nov/25/al-jackson-jr-memphis-sunset-the-mysterious-death-of-stax-heartbeat">in a case that still baffles authorities</a>.</p>
<p>An accident can happen to anyone, but these artists seem to have more than their share. There were numerous accidental overdoses – Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols at age 21, David Ruffin of the Temptations at 50, The Drifters’ Rudy Lewis at 27, and country great Gram Parsons, who was found dead at 26. </p>
<p>And while your odds of dying in a plane crash are about one in five million, if you’re on Rolling Stone’s list, those odds jump to one in 84: Buddy Holly, Otis Redding and Ronnie Van Zant of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Band all died in airplane accidents while on tour. </p>
<h2>A drink, a smoke and a jolt</h2>
<p>Among the general population, <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf">liver-related diseases are behind only 1.4 percent</a> of deaths. Among the Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Artists, however, the rate is three times that. </p>
<p>It’s likely tied to the elevated alcohol and drug use among artists. Liver bile duct cancers – which are extremely rare – happened to two of the top 100, with Ray Manzarek of The Doors and Tommy Ramone of the Ramones both succumbing prematurely from a cancer that normally affects <a href="http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/277393-overview#a6">one in 100,000 people a year</a>. </p>
<p>The vast majority of those on Rolling Stone’s list were born in the 1940s and reached maturity during the 1960s, <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf">when tobacco smoking peaked</a>. So not surprisingly, a significant portion of artists died from lung cancer: George Harrison of the Beatles at age 58, Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys at 51, Richard Wright of Pink Floyd at 65, Eddie Kendricks of the Temptations at 52 and Obie Benson of the Four Tops at 69. Throat cancer – also linked with smoking – caused the deaths of country great Carl Perkins at 65 and Levon Helm of The Band at 71.</p>
<p>A good number from the list had heart attacks or heart failure, such as Ian Stewart of the Rolling Stones at 47 and blues greats Muddy Waters at 70, Howlin Wolf at 65, Roy Orbison at 52 and Jackie Wilson at 49. </p>
<p>We recently saw The Eagles’ Glenn Frey succumb to pneumonia, but so did soul singer Jackie Wilson at age 49, nine years after a massive heart attack. James Brown complained of a persistent cough and declining health before he passed at 73, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/26/arts/music/26brown.html?pagewanted=all">with the cause of death listed as congestive heart failure as a result of pneumonia</a>.</p>
<p>Currently, the U.S. is in the midst of an opioid abuse epidemic, with heroin and prescription drug overdoses happening <a href="http://www.asam.org/docs/default-source/advocacy/opioid-addiction-disease-facts-figures.pdf">at historic rates</a>. </p>
<p>But for rock stars, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2760168/">opioid abuse is nothing new</a>. Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Sid Vicious, Gram Parsons, Whitney Houston (who didn’t make the list), Michael Jackson and now Prince all died from accidental opioid overdoses. </p>
<h2>Two key findings</h2>
<p>One of the two shocking findings of this analysis deals with life expectancy. Among those dead, the average age was 49, which is <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html">the same as Chad</a>, the country with the lowest life expectancy in the world. The average American male <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf">has a life expectancy of about 76 years</a>. </p>
<p>Factoring in their birth year and a life expectancy of 76 years, only 44 should have died by now. Instead, 82 have. (Incidentally, of the 44 we would have expected to be dead by now, 19 are still alive.)</p>
<p>The second shocking discovery was the sobering and disproportional
occurrence of alcohol- and drug-related deaths. </p>
<p>There was Kurt Cobain’s gunshot suicide while intoxicated and Duane Allman’s drunk driving motorcycle crash. Members of legendary bands like The Who (John Entwistle, 57, and Keith Moon, 32), The Doors (Jim Morrison, 27), The Byrds (Gene Clark, 46, and Michael Clarke, 47) and The Band (Rick Danko, 55, and Richard Manuel, 42) all succumbed to alcohol or drugs.</p>
<p>Others – The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia and country star Hank Williams – steadily declined from substance abuse while their organs deteriorated. Their official causes of death were heart-related. In truth, the cause may have been more directly related to substance abuse. </p>
<p>In all, alcohol and drugs accounted for at least one in 10 of these great artists’ deaths. </p>
<h2>Does a quest for fame lead to an early demise?</h2>
<p>Many have explored the root causes behind these premature deaths.</p>
<p>One answer may come from dysfunctional childhoods: experiencing physical or sexual abuse, having a depressed parent or having a family broken up by tragedy or divorce. <a href="http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/2/6/e002089.short">An article published</a> in the British Medical Journal found that “adverse childhood experiences” may act as a motivator to become successful and famous as a way to move past childhood trauma. </p>
<p>The authors noted an increased incidence of these adverse childhood experiences among famous artists. Unfortunately, the same adverse experiences also predispose people to depression, drug use, risky behaviors and premature death. </p>
<p>A somewhat similar hypothesis is proposed by the <a href="http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/aspirations-index/">Self Determination Theory</a>, which addresses human motivation through the lens of “intrinsic” versus “extrinsic” life aspirations. People who have intrinsic goals seek inward happiness and contentment. On the other hand, people who possess extrinsic goals focus on material success, fame and wealth – the exact sort of thing attained by these exceptional artists. According to research, people who have extrinsic goals tend to have had less-involved parents and are more likely to experience bouts of depression.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/major-depressive-disorder/association-between-major-mental-disorders-and-geniuses">A good deal of research</a> has also explored the fine line between creative genius and mental illness across a wide range of disciplines. They include authors (<a href="http://www.mcmanweb.com/woolf.html">Virginia Woolf</a> and <a href="http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=490460">Ernest Hemingway</a>), scholars (<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032707001395">Aristotle</a> and <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPSM%2FPSM18_01%2FS0033291700001823a.pdf&code=479300979b92179f454f2789ffa4ab4d">Isaac Newton</a>), <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/blog/post/classical-composers-and-their-maladies">classical composers</a> (Beethoven, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky), painters (<a href="http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/appi.ajp.159.4.519">Van Gogh</a>), sculptors (<a href="http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/199/5/373.full">Michelangelo</a>) and <a href="http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/183/3/255?.full">contemporary musical geniuses</a>. </p>
<p>Psychiatrist Arnold Ludwig, in his meta-analysis of over 1,000 people, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6coe7r9iwosC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=a+m+ludwig+price+of+greatness&ots=TJhiaV1tOL&sig=ogU7wt65ZQ96YnvR8EJ1UraWFYg#v=onepage&q=a%20m%20ludwig%20price%20of%20greatness&f=false">The Price of Greatness: Resolving the Creativity and Madness Controversy</a>,” concluded that artists, compared to other professions, were much more likely to have mental illnesses, and were prone to being afflicted with them for longer periods of time.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Cornell psychiatrist William Frosch, author of “<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010440X87900678">Moods, madness, and music: Major affective disease and musical creativity</a>,” was able to connect the creativity of groundbreaking musical artists to their psychiatric disorders. According to Frosch, their mental illnesses were behind their creative output.</p>
<p>My review also confirmed a greater incidence of mood disorders among these Great 100 rock stars. Numerous studies have shown that depression, bipolar disease and related diagnoses come with <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4102288/">an increased risk</a> <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=383975">for premature death, suicide and addiction</a>. </p>
<p>By following the relationship between genius and mental illness, mental illness and substance abuse, and then substance abuse, health problems and accidental death, you can see why so many great artists seem almost destined for a premature or drug-induced demise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59720/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory L. Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For those on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Artists, their life expectancy is on par with the people of Chad, the nation with the lowest life expectancy in the world.Gregory L. Hall, Assistant Clinical Professor, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/398492015-04-09T14:42:29Z2015-04-09T14:42:29ZUnlike a Rolling Stone: is science really better than journalism at self-correction?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77402/original/image-20150408-18083-j2qguh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Both science and journalism can do better at acknowledging and correcting errors.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-130062092.html&src=download_history">Periodicals via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rolling Stone’s <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/a-note-to-our-readers-20141205">retraction</a> of an incendiary article about an alleged gang rape on the campus of the University of Virginia certainly deserves a place in the pantheon of legendary journalism screw-ups. It is highly unusual – although <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/us/correcting-the-record-times-reporter-who-resigned-leaves-long-trail-of-deception.html">not unprecedented</a> – for a news organization to air its dirty laundry so publicly.</p>
<p>One meme that’s emerged from the wreckage is that journalism ought to be more like science, which, it’s thought, is the epitome of a self-correcting system. In a story about the Rolling Stone retraction, for example, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/business/in-report-on-rolling-stone-a-case-study-in-failed-journalism.html">the New York Times reported</a> that <a href="http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/profile/50-nicholas-lemann/10">Nicholas Lemann</a>, former dean of the Columbia Journalism School, teaches his students that the “Journalistic Method” is much like the scientific method:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s all about very rigorous hypothesis testing: What is my hypothesis and how would I disprove it? That’s what the journalist didn’t do in this case.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That’s a pretty analogy – but even in science, the reality doesn’t live up to the ideal.</p>
<h2>Mistakes were made</h2>
<p>What’s certainly true, as a definitive <a href="http://www.cjr.org/investigation/rolling_stone_investigation.php">12,700-word report</a> by Lemann’s successor at Columbia, Steve Coll, and colleagues points out, is that Sabrina Rubin Erdely, who wrote the magazine article, did not attempt to disprove her hypothesis by interviewing the alleged perpetrators of the alleged rape. Nor did Rolling Stone’s editors require her to go back and do such reporting before publishing the article.</p>
<p>We’d consider that akin to a failure of peer review, the process by which experts look for problems in methodology that might undermine a scientist’s conclusions. When you’re not pushing yourself – or someone else – to look for those problems, one possibility is that confirmation bias wins. That natural tendency for all of us to look for evidence that supports a narrative or theory we believe to be true is very powerful.</p>
<p>It’s also true that two of the three broad categories for why media outlets retract articles, as described in the New York Times, are roughly the same for science: outright fabrication and plagiarism. (The third category, and the one which pertains in the Rolling Stone debacle, relates to lack of skepticism. We’ll get back to that in a moment.)</p>
<h2>Ideals of scientific publishing are a standard to emulate</h2>
<p>But the similarities end there. </p>
<p>Science, and scientific publishing, rarely tells the story of a single event. Published papers, particularly in the world of biomedicine, typically relate what happened in experiments involving multiple tests. What Lemann is in fact describing is just one small, although essential, aspect of the scientific method – the effort to identify and eliminate bias in one’s thinking or testing of a hypothesis.</p>
<p>When science works as designed, subsequent findings augment, alter or completely undermine earlier research. When something new emerges that revises the prevailing wisdom, scientists can, and often do, correct the record by retracting their earlier work.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77400/original/image-20150408-18086-w8xy3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77400/original/image-20150408-18086-w8xy3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77400/original/image-20150408-18086-w8xy3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=152&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77400/original/image-20150408-18086-w8xy3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77400/original/image-20150408-18086-w8xy3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=152&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77400/original/image-20150408-18086-w8xy3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=191&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77400/original/image-20150408-18086-w8xy3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=191&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77400/original/image-20150408-18086-w8xy3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=191&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">So many journals, so many errors?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/yeaki/6961051384">Tobias von der Haar</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reality falls short</h2>
<p>The problem is that in science – or, more accurately, scientific publishing – this process seldom works as directed. </p>
<p>Through our work on <a href="http://retractionwatch.com">Retraction Watch</a>, we have found that journals – even when they end up retracting, which is not as often as they should – rarely give a full and clear picture of how and why a paper went off the rails. Retraction notices in science typically do not resemble the explications one finds in newspapers when an article is pulled – and never do they involve a report as detailed as Coll’s overview of the admittedly unique Rolling Stone case. Some journals even have advised readers to <a href="http://retractionwatch.com/2012/07/10/another-opaque-notice-from-the-jbc-for-paper-that-author-says-is-correct-and-valid/">contact the authors of the original papers for more information</a>, which somehow strikes them as a reasonable course of action, rather than publishing for all to see what the issues were that led to the retraction.</p>
<p>While media watchdog Craig Silverman has done terrific work <a href="http://www.poynter.org/tag/regret-the-error/">cataloging journalism corrections</a>, as far as we know, no one has a comprehensive list of newspaper and magazine retractions, which seem to be less frequent than scientific retractions. Scientific journals still retract very rarely: Between <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111005/full/478026a.html">400</a> and <a href="http://pmretract.herokuapp.com/byyear">500</a> articles each year, compared to roughly 1.4 million papers published. </p>
<p>That brings us back to lack of skepticism. Just as a good narrative sells in the media, a compelling storyline carries outsize weight in science. Journals are more likely to <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/social-sciences-suffer-from-severe-publication-bias-1.15787">publish positive findings than negative results</a>. And as emerging scholarship shows, it’s not unusual to publish studies that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001747">simply are not true</a>. That’s confirmation bias at work again, aided and abetted by the way many scientists use statistics. Simply put, if you do 20 experiments, one of them is likely to have a publishable result. But only publishing that result doesn’t make your findings valid. In fact it’s quite the opposite.</p>
<p>Why does this happen? Because the entire scientific community, from the junior researchers to the editors-in-chief, are vulnerable to the same sort of credulity from which Rolling Stone’s editors suffered, which is a particular form of confirmation bias. The result, in biomedical sciences, at least, is a <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/reproducibility/">crisis of irreproducibility</a>. Simply put, much, if not most, of what gets published today in a scientific journal is only somewhat likely to hold up if another lab tries the experiment again, and, chances are, maybe not even that.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77401/original/image-20150408-18083-1uuonus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77401/original/image-20150408-18083-1uuonus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77401/original/image-20150408-18083-1uuonus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77401/original/image-20150408-18083-1uuonus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77401/original/image-20150408-18083-1uuonus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77401/original/image-20150408-18083-1uuonus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77401/original/image-20150408-18083-1uuonus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77401/original/image-20150408-18083-1uuonus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Science journals look so solidly accurate….</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nic221/391536867">Nicole Hennig</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Everyone can and should do better</h2>
<p>Journals, like magazines, ought to be held to a higher standard for the material they publish. Just as they are ranked on how often their articles are cited (the so-called impact factor), they ought to be rated on how often they retract papers and how forthcoming those notices are. They also should be graded on how many of the findings they publish are reproduced by future studies, what we’ve called a “<a href="http://www.labtimes.org/labtimes/ranking/dont/2013_04.lasso">reproducibility index</a>.”</p>
<p>But there are other real-life consequences: after the Coll report appeared, the UVA fraternity at which the rape purportedly occurred announced it would <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/04/06/u-va-fraternity-announces-lawsuit-against-rolling-stone/">file a lawsuit</a> against Rolling Stone for the misleading coverage. Lawyers can play a big role in science, too; we’ve seen a number of cases recently in which <a href="http://www.labtimes.org/labtimes/ranking/dont/2014_06.lasso">vigorous representation tries to keep the real story out of retraction notices</a> – and out of the public eye.</p>
<p>Lawsuits are not the only fallout from error and fraud, however. A 2013 <a href="http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/131106/srep03146/full/srep03146.html">study</a> found that scientists who retract papers for fraud are likely to see what you’d expect: a dip in citations to their other work. In fact, entire related fields can see those dips. But what was heartening from that study was that researchers who voluntarily retract papers for honest error actually saw a small bump in their citations. If scientists, unconsciously or not, are rewarding good behavior, doesn’t it make sense that people reading newspapers and magazines will, too?</p>
<p>As two people working in one field – journalism – and covering another – science – we’ve become very conscious of the fact that reporting and research are both subject to the same human frailty as every other human endeavor, and it’s not clear to us that either is better at self-correction. Both fields can learn from one another. They can also learn from fields such as surgery, in which successful operating rooms have realized that empowering everyone, not just senior surgeons who might be reluctant to acknowledge their errors, <a href="http://www.apsf.org/newsletters/html/2014/June/04_surgicaldebrief.htm">means safer patients</a>. Admitting we’re human is difficult, but boy does it make a difference.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This piece was co-authored by Adam Marcus. Oransky and Marcus are co-founders of <a href="http://retractionwatch.com">Retraction Watch</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39849/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ivan Oransky, global editorial director of MedPage Today, is co-founder of Retraction Watch. Retraction Watch, through its parent organization, The Center For Scientific Integrity, is funded by a generous grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.</span></em></p>Science has a reputation for vigorous hypothesis-testing in the search for truth. But when errors make it into scientific journals, the hallowed self-correction process seldom lives up to the ideal.Ivan Oransky, Global Editorial Director, MedPage Today, & Adjunct Associate Professor, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/161942013-07-18T05:24:30Z2013-07-18T05:24:30ZWhy is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover of Rolling Stone?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/27677/original/678hg3ds-1374117560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Rolling Stone cover image of alleged Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has drawn comparisons to rock musician Jim Morrison. But is this glamourising Tsarnaev?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rolling Stone</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Popular culture magazine Rolling Stone has released the cover of its August 1 print edition on the internet. Most of the headlines promise the familiar mix of pop culture and news: a review of Jay-Z’s album, a thesis on why Robin Thicke appeals as an R&B artist, a tribute to the touring resilience of Willie Nelson, something on climate change. Then, straddling both worlds, we have Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.</p>
<p>Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect of April’s Boston Marathon bombings, is the front cover. The headline reads:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Bomber: How a Popular, Promising Student Was Failed by His Family, Fell Into Radical Islam and Became a Monster. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It promises an important reflection on a significant global phenomenon. In the UK, following Lee Rigby’s <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10076791/Soldier-murdered-in-Woolwich-named-as-Drummer-Lee-Rigby.html">murder</a>, calls have been made for more research on the connections between the process of radicalisation and terrorism.</p>
<p>Of course Rolling Stone covers being what they are, the words are the last thing that catch your attention. As news websites <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/alleged-boston-bomber-dzhokhar-tsarnaevs-rolling-stone-cover-picture-ignites-firestorm-20130718-2q59n.html#ixzz2ZM2Tr5mM">pointed out</a>, the cover prompted instant social media outrage by making Tsarnaev look like a rock star. Incensed readers pointed to the similarities between this picture and the classic <a href="http://ronewzakcleveland.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/comparison.jpg">Jim Morrison cover</a>. That image of The Doors’ mythic frontman was instrumental in defining the rockstar photograph as a genre in itself. Understandably, many are outraged by the elevation of the alleged bomber to celebrity status.</p>
<p>It’s tempting to think that the magazine deserves the flak, as it clearly anticipated controversy. The editors have published a <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/07/rolling-stone-cover-of-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-ignites-online-firestorm/">statement</a> emphasising their sympathy for the Boston bombers’ victims, and defend both cover and story as being consistent with Rolling Stone’s “long-standing commitment to serious and thoughtful coverage of the most important political and cultural issues of our day”. Apparently, the cover emphasises that Tsarnaev looks like any ordinary young person. The intention is to create a deliberate juxtaposition: how can an handsome, talented, popular kid end up being implicated in such a willful atrocity?</p>
<p>But readers aren’t buying it. Literally.</p>
<p>Online readers have found different reasons to object. There’s reasonable, visceral anger at the glamourisation of a figure who is accused of maiming and murdering. But there are also accusations that Rolling Stone is jamming a square peg into a round hole. A reader called “Tom Russo” observed that the magazine brand depends on covers that “are traditionally seen as aspirational”, and it’s disingenuous to distance this cover from the rest. </p>
<p>We are accustomed to Rolling Stone covers being about sexy folks we want to be. They know it. We know it. No accompanying story or editorial comment can change that. Good journalism is arguably more important than it has ever been, while industrial changes make good journalists an endangered species. Clearly, Rolling Stone’s decision reflects commercial interests. Its ethical defence will doubtless be a matter of conjecture for some time, because it speaks to a growing public scepticism toward a media form that is integral to the health of society. This cause célèbre is a big deal.</p>
<p>Academic media research can’t answer the question “should this have happened”? But it can offer insights on why it happened, with its work on the connections between news and entertainment.</p>
<p>For a long time now, American magazines have sold themselves by attracting attention to horrible stories by using beautiful pictures. Back in the 1950s, “true life confession” magazines became enormously popular with American women. These titles typically told “true” stories about “good” girls who ended up in horrible situations. The victims of these narratives were always young women who wouldn’t go out with nice boys, or settle down to get married. One tale features a woman who takes the daring step of going on a European vacation, only to be seduced by an evil Austrian Nazi.</p>
<p>Researching these stories, social scientist George Gerbner noticed an intriguing anomaly: the covers of the magazines never reflected their content. Where the written copy outlined horribly lurid details of violence and degradation, the covers always featured its victims as sweet, beautiful and happy. The reason was simple enough: store owners wouldn’t stock covers featuring abuse. They worried that “true” covers would disturb customers’ buying mood.</p>
<p>The connection here is that there is a long history of writers having to ply their trade within the strictures of commercial media genres. So, a Rolling Stone cover story has to look like a Rolling Stone cover story. The magazine might have got it horribly wrong here, but this does prompt us to think about the relationship between news and entertainment.</p>
<p>Gerbner thought that entertainment creates powerful images about what the real world is like. Further, when we try to make sense of events of which we have no direct experience, we often fall back on familiar media narratives. Faced with incomprehensible horrors, one reaction is to interpret them through the genres that have become common vernacular. As Australian cultural studies professor Graeme Turner <a href="http://www.sagepub.com/books/Book225673">has argued</a>, “celebrity” is one such language.</p>
<p>People are rightly asking if the cover is ethical. But a better way to get at the anger beneath this question is to ask if it was predictable, given the commercial pressures of competitive media markets.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16194/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Ruddock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Popular culture magazine Rolling Stone has released the cover of its August 1 print edition on the internet. Most of the headlines promise the familiar mix of pop culture and news: a review of Jay-Z’s…Andy Ruddock, Senior Lecturer, Research Unit in Media Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.