AskHistorians

Gonzo is fundamentally about individual experience and what truth comes out from the impressions that experience makes on an individual. But it can’t be fraudulent.

I get the distinction you're making, although I'd argue "fraudulent" is a term doing a bit of heavy lifting. Journalism is always going to be about perspective. And even the OG Hunter Thompson piece on the Hell's Angels was a war between his preconceptions and his shifting perspective.

But I'll go back to Andrew Callahan and Channel 5 as a (admittedly more short-form) modern Gonzo journalist.

I will say that the early TDS (maybe Colbert isn't the best example - Jason Jones, Ed Helms, and Wyatt Cenac were more serious and less "in character") had people doing on-the-ground reporting and even longer form investigative pieces that had them living the lifestyle or event they were covering more authentically.

And if I can’t convince you that Bourdain is closer to gonzo, maybe this article can.

I guess, from the way I see it, Bourdain was more a chef who became a journalist than a journalist who reported on being a chef.

Idk if that makes a difference to you, but it seems like a distinction to me, at least as far as Bourdain isn't immersing himself so much as he is sort-of producing an extended autobiography.

Maybe you can say that about the right-wingers as well. They're not really going to the material so much as coming from it.