The Brass Check
Encyclopedia
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. Sinclair called The Brass Check "the most important and most dangerous book I have ever written."(p. 429) The University of Illinois Press released a new edition of the book in 2003, which contains a preface by Robert McChesney and Ben Scott
. The text is also freely available on the Internet, as Sinclair opted not to copyright the text in an effort to maximize its readership.
For much of Sinclair's career he was known as a "two book author": for writing The Jungle
and The Brass Check. 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.
s. 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.
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.
Sinclair quotes a letter from the editor of the weekly San Francisco Star, James H. Barry:
Among the recent events whose media coverage he discusses are the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike of 1912
in West Virginia, the Ludlow massacre
in Colorado in 1914, 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."
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."
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.
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."
Sinclair, Upton. "The Brass Check. A Study of American Journalism. (PDF version).
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).
Muckraker
The term muckraker is closely associated with reform-oriented journalists who wrote largely for popular magazines, continued a tradition of investigative journalism reporting, and emerged in the United States after 1900 and continued to be influential until World War I, when through a combination...
exposé of American journalism by Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. , was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle . It exposed conditions in the U.S...
published in 1919. It focuses mainly on newspapers and the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
wire service
News agency
A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to news organizations: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. Such an agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire or news service.-History:The oldest news agency is Agence...
, 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. Sinclair called The Brass Check "the most important and most dangerous book I have ever written."(p. 429) The University of Illinois Press released a new edition of the book in 2003, which contains a preface by Robert McChesney and Ben Scott
Ben Scott
Benjamin James Matthew Scott is an English cricketer. He is a right-handed batsman and wicket-keeper. He was born in Isleworth, Middlesex.-Early career:...
. The text is also freely available on the Internet, as Sinclair opted not to copyright the text in an effort to maximize its readership.
For much of Sinclair's career he was known as a "two book author": for writing The Jungle
The Jungle
The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by journalist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair wrote the novel with the intention of portraying the life of the immigrant in the United States, but readers were more concerned with the large portion of the book pertaining to the corruption of the American meatpacking...
and The Brass Check. 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 institutionInstitution
An institution is any structure or mechanism of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals within a given human community...
s. The series also includes The Profits of Religion
The Profits of Religion
The Profits of Religion: An Essay in Economic Interpretation is a nonfiction book, first published in 1917, by the American novelist and muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair. It is a snapshot of the religious movements in the U.S. before its entry into World War I.The book is the first of the “Dead...
, The Goose-step
The Goose-Step (book)
The Goose-step: A Study of American Education is a book, published in 1923, by the American novelist and muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair. It is an investigation into the consequences of plutocratic capitalist control of American colleges and universities...
(higher education), The Goslings (elementary and high school education), Mammonart
Mammonart
Mammonart. An Essay on Economic Interpretation is a book of literary criticism from a Socialist point of view of the traditional ‘great authors’ of Western and American literature...
(great literature, art and music) and Money Writes! (literature). The term "Dead Hand" criticizes Adam Smith’s
Adam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
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
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
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 SocialistSocialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
causes and Sinclair's investigations of business corruption, cases where he was not personally involved, and proposed remedies. Like American filmmaker Michael Moore
Michael Moore
Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
, 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
Yellow journalism
Yellow journalism or the yellow press is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism...
. 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
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
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
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
(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.
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 Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike of 1912
Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike of 1912
The Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike of 1912 was a confrontation between striking coal miners and coal operators in Kanawha County, West Virginia, centered around the area enclosed by two streams, Paint Creek and Cabin Creek....
in West Virginia, the Ludlow massacre
Ludlow massacre
The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914....
in Colorado in 1914, Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) meetings, and the Red Scare
First Red Scare
In American history, the First Red Scare of 1919–1920 was marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism. Concerns over the effects of radical political agitation in American society and alleged spread in the American labor movement fueled the paranoia that defined the period.The First Red...
whipped up by the newspapers. As a tireless investigative reporter
Investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...
, Sinclair offered the results of his investigations to the newspapers for publication, but was almost entirely ignored.
The propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
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
William II, German Emperor
Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe...
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 endowedFinancial endowmentA financial endowment is a transfer of money or property donated to an institution. The total value of an institution's investments is often referred to as the institution's endowment and is typically organized as a public charity, private foundation, or trust....
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.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."
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 Checks analysis of the media accurate and valuable. It is "muckraking at its best" and "astonishingly prescient in its critique of the coziness of big media and other corporate interests."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."
Editions
Sinclair, Upton. "the Brass Check. A Study of American Journalism.".Sinclair, Upton. "The Brass Check. A Study of American Journalism. (PDF version).
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).
External links
- McChesney, Robert W. "Journalism, Democracy, … and Class Struggle." Monthly Review 52:6 (November 2000).
- McChesney, Robert W. and Scott, Ben. 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 Lilly Library, Indiana UniversityIndiana University BloomingtonIndiana University Bloomington is a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. IU Bloomington is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Being the flagship campus, IU Bloomington is often referred to simply as IU or Indiana...
, Bloomington, Indiana.