The Boys on the Bus
by Timothy Crouse · first published 1973
7mentions
3recommended by
7HN commenters
2013–2023first – last mentioned
43% recommend57% neutral
Cheap booze. Flying fleshpots. Lack of sleep. Endless spin. Lying pols... Just a few of the snares lying in wait for the reporters who covered the 1972 presidential election. Traveling with the press pack from the June primaries to the big night in November, Rolling Stone reporter Timothy Crouse hopscotched the country with both the Nixon and McGovern campaigns and witnessed the birth of modern campaign journalism. The Boys on the Bus is the raucous story of how American news got to be what it is today.
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Thanks for the recommendation - and I'll have to check out "Where the Buffalo Roam" too. Regarding the 1972 election, Timothy Crouse's "The Boys on the Bus" (published around the same time as HST's book) is also worth reading. It's about the reporters on the road reporting on the campaign ("one of the first treatises on pack journalism" sez Wikipedia) and…
on “How Hunter S. Thompson Became a Legend” ↗Historical but Boys on the Bus by Timothy Crouse on old-style political journalism. (Although I imagine a lot is still true.) There's a lot about journalism, photojournalism, and so forth (perhaps unsurprisingly) although so much has…
on “Ask HN: Recommend books that give you insight into other professions” ↗I highly recommend The Boys on the Bus by Timothy Crouse[1] for some fantastic contemporaneous analysis of Richard Nixon and his relationship with the press. One part that stood out to me: Crouse believes (and presents compelling evidence)…
on “Missouri Governor Vows to Prosecute St. Louis Post-Dispatch for Reporting” ↗Just ordered Crouse's "The Boys on the Bus", another take on the 1972 presidential campaign, focusing more to the campaign journalism.
on “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in ’72 (1973)” ↗…the author a character in the story is the opposite of what a good journalist is to do… Kids taking journalism classes might get to hear about Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 (through The Boys on the Bus) and I think there’s a little bit more to that than just writing for young people and doing drugs.
on “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved [pdf]” ↗The story is told in The Boys on the Bus, that Johnny Apple of the NY Times was disliked by other reporters on the state house beat, and that one group who regularly lunched together decided that griping about him had become boring. They enforced…
on “Swear Jar – Incentivizing good behavior ” ↗The author was also a minor player in new journalism circles. He wrote "boys on the bus", an account of working with Hunter S Thompson to cover the 1972 presidential campaign.
on “Weird-Looking Freak Saves Apollo 14 (1971)” ↗