Upton Sinclair’s The Brass Check (1919) is a fierce exposé of the American newspaper press. Sinclair, the muckraking author of The Jungle, charges that the press of his day was corrupted by advertising money and corporate ownership, suppressing or distorting the news to serve powerful interests.
The title refers to the token a brothel customer received — Sinclair’s blunt metaphor for a press he saw as bought and sold. Drawing on his own experiences with reporters and editors, the book is a passionate argument for honest journalism and one of the most important early works of American media criticism. Download the free EPUB of this classic indictment.