The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism — John Shaqi
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
James Gordon Bennett, the younger, was the son of the man who had
founded the “New York Herald,” establishing the sensational, so-called
“popular” journalism which Pulitzer and Hearst afterwards took up and
carried to extremes. Bennett, the elder, had been a real newspaper man;
his son had been a debauch and spendthrift in his youth, and was now in
his old age an embittered and cynical invalid, travelling in his yacht
from Bermuda to the Riviera, and occasionally resorting to the capitals
of Europe for fresh dissipations. He had made his paper the organ of
just such men as himself; that is to say, of cosmopolitan café loungers,
with one eye on the stock-ticker and the other on their “scotch and
soda.” And this was the publisher who was to take up a new crusade
against the Beef Trust!
But to my surprise, the editor came back with a cablegram from Bennett,
bidding him go ahead with the story. So I put the matter before Mrs.
Bloor, and she and the “Herald” reporter went out to the Stockyards and
spent about two months. Mrs. Bloor disguised herself as a Polish woman,
and both she and the reporter obtained jobs in half a dozen different
places in the yards. They came back, reporting that conditions were
worse than ever; they wrote their story, enough to fill an eight-page
Sunday supplement, with numerous photographs of the scenes described.
There was a conference of the editorial staff of the “Herald,” which
agreed that the story was the greatest the paper had ever had in its
history. It must be read by Mr. Bennett, the staff decided. So it was
mailed to Bermuda—which was the last ever seen or heard of it!
Week after week I waited for the story to appear. When I learned that it
was not to appear I was, of course, somewhat irritated. I threatened to
sue the “Herald” for payment for the time I had spent writing the
introduction, but I found myself confronting this dilemma: the
enthusiastic young editor was a Socialist, and if I made trouble, he was
the one who would be hurt. So I decided to forego my money-claim on the
“Herald.” But I would not give up the story—that was a public matter.
The public had been fooled into believing that there had been reforms in
Packingtown; the public was continuing to eat tubercular beef-steaks,
and I was bound that somehow or other the public should get the facts. I
wrote up the story and submitted it to other newspapers in New York. Not
one would touch it. I submitted it to President Roosevelt, and he
replied that he was sorry, but was too busy to take the matter up.
“Teddy” was a shrewd politician, and knew how hard it is to warm up dead
ashes, how little flavor there is in re-cooked food.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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