tain, a false determinism which would abandon the analysis at that point. The intrinsic power of the reporter appears to be so great, the number of very able men who pass through reporting is so large, that there must be some deeper reason why, comparatively speaking, so little serious effort has gone into raising the vocation to the level say of medicine, engineering, or law.
Mr. Upton Sinclair speaks for a large body of opinion in America,[1] when he claims that in what he calls "The Brass Check" he has found this deeper reason:
"The Brass Check is found in your pay envelope every week—you who write and print and distribute our newspapers and magazines. The Brass check is the price of your shame—you who take the fair body of truth and sell it in the market place, who betray the virgin hopes of mankind into the loathsome brothel of Big Business."[2]
It would seem from this that there exists a body of known truth, and a set of well founded hopes, which are prostituted by a more or less conscious conspiracy of the rich owners of newspapers. If this theory is correct, then a certain conclusion follows. It is that the fair body of truth would be inviolate in a press not in any way connected with Big Business. For if it should happen that a press not controlled by, and not even friendly with, Big Business somehow failed to contain the fair body of
- ↑ Mr. Hilaire Belloc makes practically the same analysis for English newspapers. Cf. The Free Press.
- ↑ Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check. A Study of American Journalism, p. 436.
