Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check

Michael Hoover hooverm at scc-fl.edu
Thu May 2 16:27:52 PDT 2002



>>> cbcox at ilstu.edu 05/01/02 16:26 PM >>>
I was delighted in opening the latest issue of MR today to see that it featured a lead article on Upton Sinclair's greatest work, _The Brass Check_. For many years, in answer to people who complained about the "consolidation" of the press in the last decades I have urged them to read this work. The Press is not a whit worse today than it was a hundred years ago. Then as now it serves its owners -- the capitalist class. Complaints about the current media which look back to the supposedly brigher days of a more independent press 25 or 50 or 100 years ago are, implicitly, apologies for capitalism: their implication is that the press would be just fine if independent capitalists instead of corporations ran it. Carrol <<<<<>>>>>

some evidence indicates that range of political views expressed in 19th century press was good bit wider than range of views represented through media conglomerates of last century...

on other hand, individuals newspapers from time of early republic to mid-nineteenth century were closely tied to and generally funded by political parties, political interests, and politicians...hamilton had 'gazette of the u.s.' owned by john fenno to promote washington's administration and federalists, as treasury sec hamilton granted fenno treasury dept printing contracts...jefferson (who complained that fenno's paper was 'pure toryism') had 'national gazette' owned by philip freneau to promote what came to be called democratic-republicans, as sec of state jefferson granted freneau authority to print state dept documents...

point is that pols supported newspapers by favoring them with government business...every prez from first adams to buchanan maintained personal relations with newspaper owners who faithfully reflected their views (polk had one publisher fire an editor who had attacked his policies)...

'coverage' of federal government until civil war was largely comprised of publishing what government wanted people to read (not much different today now that i think about it)...congress did not begin publishing its own 'congressional record' until 1860s, prior to that time, which ever party controlled congress gave lucrative business of printing proceedings to newspapers that provided favorable coverage...

by mid-nineteenth century mass circulation 'penny press appeared, thanks to development of high-speed rotary press...newspaper owners began to rely on adverts for revenue while asserting 'editorial independence' from political interests (of course, their views and opinions colored both op/ed and news pages)...

i accidentally deleted post from someone (might have been michael perelman) who mentioned muckrakers, kinda ironic that we remember such folks by name that t roosevelt used to disparage them...term actually killed 'investigative journalism' of not-so-progressive era...

in any event, so-called muckrakers had limited access to daily newspapers...one who did, nellie bly, was let go by 'pittsburgh dispatch' after advertisers threatened boycott because of series she did on child labor (so much for 'editorial independence')...

business has been politically conservative throughout american history and press, with few deviations, has followed suit...newspapers in cozy relationship with advertisers use editorial 'crusades' to champion businessed beleaguered by 'tax and spend liberals' and 'government bureaucrats'... michael hoover



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