The Brass Check

infobox Book |
name = The Brass Check


image_caption =
author = Upton Sinclair
illustrator =
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Sociology, Muckraking
publisher = Self (Pasadena, California)
release_date = 1919
media_type = Print (Hardcover)
pages =
isbn =
preceded_by = The Profits of Religion
followed_by = The Goose-step

"The Brass Check" is a muckraking exposé of American journalism by Upton Sinclair published in 1919. It focuses mainly on newspapers and the Associated Press wire service, along with a few magazines. Other critiques of the press had appeared, but Sinclair reached a wider audience with his personal fame and lively,provocative writing style. [Sumpter, Randall S. "The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism." "Journalism History". 29:2 (Summer 2003), 95.] Sinclair called "The Brass Check" "the most important and most dangerous book I have ever written."(p. 429)

For much of Sinclair's career he was known as a "two book author": for writing "The Jungle" and "The Brass Check." McChesney, Robert W. and Scott, Ben. [http://www.monthlyreview.org/0502rwmscott.htm "Upton Sinclair and the contradictions of capitalist journalism."] "Monthly Review" 54.1 (May 2002), 1-14.] Sinclair organized ten printings of "The Brass Check" in its first decade and sold over 150,000 copies. To maximize his readership, he did not take advantage of the opportunity to copyright the book.

Overview

The book is one of the "Dead Hand" series: six books Sinclair wrote on American institutions. The series also includes "The Profits of Religion", "The Goose-step" (higher education), "The Goslings" (elementary and high school education), "Mammonart" (great literature, art and music) and "Money Writes!" (literature). The term "Dead Hand" criticizes Adam Smith’s concept that allowing an "invisible hand" of capitalist greed to shape economic relations provides the best result for society as a whole.

A brass check was the token purchased by a customer in a brothel and given to the woman of his choice. Sinclair implies that, in a similar fashion, the owners of the mass media purchase journalists' services in supporting the owners' political and financial interests.

Detailed synopsis

"The Brass Check" has three sections: documented cases of newspapers' refusal to publicize Socialist causes and Sinclair's investigations of business corruption, cases where he was not personally involved, and proposed remedies. Like American filmmaker Michael Moore, Sinclair incorporates other people's reactions to him into his nonfiction works.

Sinclair criticizes newspapers as ultra-conservative and supporting the political and economic powers that be, or as sensational tabloids practicing yellow journalism. In both cases, their purpose is to promote the business interests of the paper's owners, the owner's bankers, and/or the paper's advertisers. This is accomplished in several ways; among them: The publishers tell the editors what can and cannot be printed. Journalists routinely invent stories. To stimulate circulation, newspapers sensationalize trivial stories and destroy lives and reputations. Errors and slanders are never retracted, or the retraction is buried in the paper months later.

The editors and journalists of the Associated Press (AP) wire service fail to serve the public interest in the same way as employees of the individual papers. Controlled by 41 large newspaper corporations, the AP acts in their interests. [Nalbach, Alex. ""Poisoned at the Source"? Telegraphic News Services and Big Business in the Nineteenth Century." "Business History Review", 77:4 (Winter 2003), 577-611. (Available through JSTOR) Corroborates Sinclair's claim that the corporate control of the AP shaped the news it reported.]

Sinclair quotes a letter from the editor of the weekly "San Francisco Star", James H. Barry::"You wish to know my "confidential opinion as to the honesty of the Associated Press." My opinion, not confidential, is that it is the damndest, meanest monopoly on the face of the earth--the wet-nurse for all other monopolies. It lies by day, it lies by night, and it lies for the very lust of lying. Its news-gatherers, I sincerely believe, only obey orders."

Among the recent events whose media coverage he discusses are the Colorado mine workers strike in 1914, the West Virginia coal-miners’ strike of 1913, Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) meetings, and the Red Scare whipped up by the newspapers. As a tireless investigative reporter, Sinclair offered the results of his investigations to the newspapers for publication, but was almost entirely ignored.

The propaganda tactics practiced by U.S. government and corporations during World War I were continued after the war against political dissenters. Sinclair writes, " [T] oday all the energies which were directed against the Kaiser have been turned against the radicals."

Remedies proposed

Sinclair recognized that a grass-roots response (mass meetings, demonstrations, circulating pamphlets, etc.) was not adequate when the mass media spread misinformation or ignored the truth. His main proposed remedies were:
* a law that any newspaper which prints a false statement shall be required to give equal prominence to a correction, on penalty of a substantial fine.
* the AP's monopoly, which he saw as a "public utility", should be challenged by other wire services.
* a law forbidding any newspaper to fake telegraph or cable dispatches.
* reporters must unionize so they have the power to fix their wage-scale and their ethical code.
* an endowed weekly chronicle of news, without advertisements or editorials, cheaply printed and widely available.

Political reception

The first code of ethics for journalists was created in 1923. [Fengler, Susanne. "Holding the news media accountable: A study of media reporters and media critics in the United States." "Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly" 80:4 (Winter 2003), 818-32.]

By 1923, the FBI had in its files a report on "The Brass Check", and a memorandum in the file noted that the directing manager of the "Associated Press" "has in his possession a confidential report on the book, "The Brass Check"." [Folsom, Franklin. "Notes on Writergate." "Monthly Review" 47:1 (May 1995), 25. Excerpted from "Days of Anger, Days of Hope: A Memoir of the League of American Writers, 1937-1942." ]

Sinclair challenged those who charged him with inaccuracy to review his published facts, and to sue him for libel if they found he had been wrong. None did. But because Sinclair was denied access to the mainstream media to refute those charges, they assumed the aura of truth, and gave the book a reputation for inaccuracy that caused it to be almost forgotten by midcentury.

Critical reception

Press watchdogs at the time of publication and recently find "The Brass Check"'s analysis of the media accurate and valuable. It is "muckraking at its best" [Hicks, Granville. "The Survival of Upton Sinclair"."College English" 4:4 (January, 1943), 213-220.] and "astonishingly prescient in its critique of the coziness of big media and other corporate interests." [Klein, Julia M. "Sinclair Redux." "Columbia Journalism Review". 45:2 (Jul/Aug 2006), 58-61.]

However, on its publication " [m] ost newspapers refused to review the book, and those very few that did were almost always unsympathetic. Many newspapers, like the "New York Times", even refused to run paid advertisements for the book (p. 294)." And "those historians who bother to mention The Brass Check dismiss it as ephemeral, explaining that the problems it depicts have been solved."

Quotations

*See quotes from "The Brass Check" at [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair WikiQuote]

Editions

Reprinted: "The Brass Check. A Study of American Journalism," by Upton Sinclair, with an introduction by Robert W. McChesney and Ben Scott. (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2003). ISBN 0-252-02805-8 (cloth), ISBN 0-252-07110-7 (paper).

References

External links

*McChesney, Robert W. [http://www.monthlyreview.org/1100rwm.htm "Journalism, Democracy, … and Class Struggle."] Monthly Review 52:6 (November 2000).
*McChesney, Robert W. and Scott, Ben. [http://www.monthlyreview.org/0502rwmscott.htm Upton Sinclair and the contradictions of capitalist journalism.] Monthly Review 54.1 (May 2002): 1-14. Adapted from the foreword to the 2003 reprint edition of "The Brass Check".
*Sinclair’s papers for "The Brass Check" are at the [http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/lilly/mss/html/sinclr.html Lilly Library] , Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.