The Brass Check: A Study of American JournalismSinclair, Upton
General
The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism
Sinclair, Upton
Associated Press; Journalism -- United States; Press -- United States
I could write columns about Cuban revolutions, and anti-cigarette and
anti-high hat laws. But there were things that I couldn’t write about
at all, and other things that I had to write as the city editor told
me, and as the owner or managing editor told him to tell me. These
included street railway and paving and gas and telephone and other
corporation measures, and anti-department store bills. And the City
Hall reporters of the three other newspapers wrote of such things just
as I did—from dictation.
Again, in Kansas City are great packing-houses, and the people of Kansas
City think they should have cheaper meat. The newspapers take up the
campaign, and Mr. Salisbury tells what comes of it:
I did some detective work. At the end of several days I found that all
the packing-houses were represented at a meeting each week in the
Armour Building, at Fifth and Delaware Streets. I gave a negro porter
five dollars to show me the room. It was his business to bring the
packers wine and cigars during the sessions at which they fixed the
prices of food for millions of people. He pointed out the chairs in
which each of them sat. He told me their names. He was willing to
arrange for me to listen in the next room when the meeting was held
again.
I returned to the “Times” office in a fever of excitement. I told what
I knew. The managing editor consulted with the business manager. Then
he came to me and said: “We won’t print any more meat trust stories
for a while.”
Several days later I saw packing-house advertisements in all the
newspapers. But none of the papers published any more news about the
price of meat for a very long time.
I quote this story, and then I realize that I have got out of my
classification; this isn’t a bribe, this is an advertisement! I can only
plead that it is hard to keep to a classification, because those who are
corrupting the press do not keep to it. They use various methods; and
sometimes the methods shade into one another, so that only a legal
expert could sort them out!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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