An old story with a new chapter today

Brasscheck’s founder talks about the 100 year war on independent journalism, right up to the present day.

Now the battleground is the Internet.

We start with the story of Upton Sinclair’s book “The Brass Check”, the finest critique of the US news media ever written.

At the time he published it, Sinclair was one of the most popular writers on earth with his work being translated into over twenty languages. In retaliation for “outing” them, the mass media commenced a multi-decade attack on his reputation, blunting his impact.

Investigative journalist George Seldes – whose work inspired the careers of Howard Zinn, Ralph Nader, and Daniel Ellsberg – literally had his newsletter In Fact driven out of business by the FBI.

And on and on it goes.