Fabrication and bias: Lessons from Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle"
Today’s journalists more than any other generation are being pulled in every direction when it comes to determining what constitutes quality journalism. Faced with nearly as many platforms for media distribution as opportunities for involvement that would lead beyond journalistic objectivity, reporters must face decisions on a daily basis that have potential to make or break their newsgathering career. Upton Sinclair, one of the most well-known muckraker journalists of the 20th century, faced the same dilemmas with questionable results. Though today’s reporters can learn many valuable journalism lessons from his book The Jungle, it is important to note that the book is not journalism in the sense that today’s generation of reporters has been taught it to mean, or if journalism, then certainly not good journalism.
Though largely based on Sinclair's six-month investigation into Chicago’s meatpacking industry, the story of Jurgis and his immigrant family’s struggles is nothing if not fictional. The characters are no doubt generally representative of Chicago’s immigrant population, but are not real people. The Jungle was originally published in parts as a series in a Socialist newspaper, and though that newspaper would not be considered a credible or quality publication by any respectable journalist today, the publication of such material in today’s journalism world would be considered fabrication in the severest form. Sinclair’s employment with the paper would be terminated and he likely would be unable to find a job at another news source for years, if not for the remainder of his lifetime. The Jungle made Sinclair famous, but were it published as journalism today it would end his career.
If fabrication weren’t reason enough to raise eyebrows, the fact that Sinclair researched and wrote The Jungle for an openly Socialist publication calls into question his journalistic integrity. Today’s reporters and editors are taught from day one of their journalism training to avoid all possible bias—or at the very least, the appearance thereof—and to be as objective as possible in every aspect of their lives so as to avoid alienating any portion of a potential audience. It’s a precarious tightrope that journalists must walk, but one that Sinclair seems to have blithely ignored simply by affiliating himself with a publication so blatantly biased, and even more so by crafting the story so that Jurgis eventually becomes a staunch Socialist—falling conveniently in line with the publication’s political leanings. The only redeeming aspect of the situation is that Sinclair must be commended for his openness concerning his own biases, for there is much to be said in praise of a reporter or publication being aware of and transparent in their biases.
Even Sinclair’s writing style is vastly different from what journalists today are taught to produce. Reporters learn in their most basic news writing classes to let quotes from sources tell the story and to use a few sentences of narration between to stitch those quotes together into a coherent piece of quality writing. But at one point Sinclair narrates for 59 pages—from page 59 to page 118—without ever once using character dialogue or directly quoting anybody. Even in long-form magazine or online articles a reporter needs to incorporate a healthy number of quotes to remove himself from the story and let the sources—the story’s subjects—tell the story for readers. The fact that The Jungle is a complete novel does not excuse it from this very basic characteristic of news writing (one must remember that it was originally published in sections, not as a complete work).
The Jungle serves not so much as a shining example of quality reporting as it does an example what not to do in one’s journalistic career. Journalism practices have evolved slightly over the years but have for the most part remained basically. The evolution from Sinclair’s writing to what reporters are taught today is one that should be appreciated on a daily basis.