THE BRASS CHECK: A Study of American Journalism

Yellow journalism, or the yellow press, is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering or sensationalism. By extension, the term yellow journalism is used today as a pejorative to decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion. In 1919, Upton Sinclair published "The Brass Check", a muckraking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the "free press" in the United States. Four years after publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created. Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) was an American author who wrote books in many genres, but in all of them advocating for the moral ethics, better life style for the working people and social justice. Writing during the Progressive Era, Sinclair describes the world of industrialized America from both the working man's point of view and the industrialist. He has also won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943.