'Rolling Stone' Owner Calls Dead Writer 'Whiny'

It's often said in journalism that you can't libel the dead. That may be true, but you can insult their memory, as Jann Wenner shows.

The Rolling Stone owner is in a public spat with the widow of Hunter S. Thompson, the colorful journalist behind Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Anita Thompson says she canceled her commitment to write an intro to Wenner's "oral biography," Gonzo, after reading the book and determining it to be full of dirty laundry.

Wenner dismisses those claims, telling the New York Daily News that he was only telling the truth: that the deceased writer "was always whiny about money and his expenses. We didn't make much of it, but we didn't hide it."

Now, Thompson may well have been "whiny" about money; this New York Times story from the '90s even attributes to him a "standard expense-account memo whine."

But let's remember who he's dealing with: A publisher absolutely famous for being over-the-top cheap about expenses. According to the Times, "[s]ome executives at [Wenner Media] pay their own expenses rather than get nickel-and-dimed by management." The company sets tight limits on how much employees can spend entertaining their sources or clients at restaurants, and prohibits them from leaving more than a 15 percent tip. The Post reported in 2002 that staffers forced to work overnight were forbidden from taking car service home, on the grounds that the company doesn't reimburse for it after 6 a.m. And so on.

All of which makes one wonder: When Wenner secretly rewrote Thompson's contract for Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 to make the writer responsible for his own expenses, was he taking a reasonable precaution, or just being stingy?

Or that's what Thompson might say, anyway -- if he were alive to defend himself.