The brass check
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. Among those critiqued was William Randolph Hearst, who made routine use of yellow journalism in his widespread newspaper and magazine business.
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What Hacker News says
- Yes! Here is his 1919 book The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism, also self-published and also courtesy of the Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/cu31924026364251/page/n3/mode/2u...
- That's a long time. Some things have been around longer: brothel tokens date from the 1st century to the early 1900's. Roman brothel tokens were used in London, and Upton Sinclair wrote about 'brass check' tokens used in his youth (1919).
- Okay - replace '"ordinary" person' with some polite phrase of your choice, which still makes it clear that the victim is not a head of state, ambassador, top military officer, Speaker of the House, Fortune 50 CEO, etc., etc.
No, I am not arguing that your idealism is morally wrong. I am arguing that the real world very often functions in ways which bear little resemblance to your ideals. No amount of idealism about "the gutter should have been stronger, and the ladder more stable, and..." will change the fact that my brother fell off a roof when young. Nor erase the injuries which he sustained. When I or people I care about are interacting with gutters and ladders, I stay very alert, and strive for "zero idealistic thoughts".
And - this sad state of affairs is nothing new. Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, The Brass Check, and other works (about the deep and systematic moral failings of corporations, journalists, etc.) over a century ago.
- He wrote the intro to the republished edition of The Brass Check believe it or not.
(But to address your other point, it may be. Chomsky's media criticism focusing heavily on this)
