Back in the day, I read The Village Voice. Hooked on Hunter (Thompson, not Holly or Rachel), I was hungry for journalism with Gonzo-style insight, passion and wit. For the Voice, two out of three wasn’t bad. Their progressive prose had passion alright, but the paper’s political perspective was skewed as far to the left as you can get without ending up on the right. The Voice is re-running some of their old material. I find it difficult to believe that I read this piece from June 13, 1968 without yelling at the proverbial screen. Idealism has an expiration date, and I hadn’t reached mine. Make of that what you will. And this, too, from The Voice’s coverage of the Bobby Kennedy assassination. I’ll say this about Pete Hamill’s eyewitness account: at least you knew where you stood with the Voice. The mainstream media—then and today—get major demerits for hiding their bias, from themselves and their audience.
You could feel that as we drove through the empty L.A. streets, listening to the sirens screaming in the night. Nothing would change. Kennedy’s death would mean nothing. It was just another digit in the great historical pageant that includes the slaughter of Indians, the plundering of Mexico, the enslavement of black people, the humiliation of Puerto Ricans. Just another digit. Nothing would come of it.