The Brass Check
E345406
The Brass Check is a 1919 exposé by Upton Sinclair that harshly criticizes the American newspaper industry for corruption, bias, and manipulation of public opinion.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Brass Check canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3277247 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Brass Check Context triple: [Upton Sinclair, notableWork, The Brass Check]
-
A.
Democracy Dies in Darkness
"Democracy Dies in Darkness" is the investigative-journalism-focused slogan of The Washington Post, emphasizing the importance of transparency and a free press to a functioning democracy.
-
B.
The Fifth Estate
The Fifth Estate is a long-running Canadian investigative journalism television program known for its in-depth reporting and exposés on major public-interest issues.
-
C.
The Fifth Estate
The Fifth Estate is a 2013 biographical thriller film that dramatizes the rise of WikiLeaks and its controversial founder Julian Assange.
-
D.
The Age of Spin
The Age of Spin is a 2017 Netflix stand-up comedy special by Dave Chappelle that marked his high-profile return to long-form televised comedy.
-
E.
The Myth of the Liberal Media
The Myth of the Liberal Media is a critical work that challenges the notion of media objectivity in the United States, arguing that mainstream news outlets systematically reflect and reinforce corporate and elite interests.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Brass Check Target entity description: The Brass Check is a 1919 exposé by Upton Sinclair that harshly criticizes the American newspaper industry for corruption, bias, and manipulation of public opinion.
-
A.
Democracy Dies in Darkness
"Democracy Dies in Darkness" is the investigative-journalism-focused slogan of The Washington Post, emphasizing the importance of transparency and a free press to a functioning democracy.
-
B.
The Fifth Estate
The Fifth Estate is a long-running Canadian investigative journalism television program known for its in-depth reporting and exposés on major public-interest issues.
-
C.
The Fifth Estate
The Fifth Estate is a 2013 biographical thriller film that dramatizes the rise of WikiLeaks and its controversial founder Julian Assange.
-
D.
The Age of Spin
The Age of Spin is a 2017 Netflix stand-up comedy special by Dave Chappelle that marked his high-profile return to long-form televised comedy.
-
E.
The Myth of the Liberal Media
The Myth of the Liberal Media is a critical work that challenges the notion of media objectivity in the United States, arguing that mainstream news outlets systematically reflect and reinforce corporate and elite interests.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
exposé ⓘ non-fiction book ⓘ |
| author | Upton Sinclair ⓘ |
| comparedJournalismTo | prostitution ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| criticizedBy | contemporary newspaper publishers ⓘ |
| criticizes |
American newspapers
ⓘ
advertiser influence on news ⓘ censorship in the press ⓘ corporate control of the press ⓘ suppression of labor news ⓘ suppression of socialist viewpoints ⓘ yellow journalism ⓘ |
| distributionMethod |
direct sales
ⓘ
mail order ⓘ |
| genre |
media criticism
ⓘ
political literature ⓘ |
| hasPart |
analysis of newspaper ownership
ⓘ
case studies of newspaper misconduct ⓘ proposals for press reform ⓘ |
| historicalContext |
Progressive Era reforms
ⓘ
rise of mass-circulation newspapers ⓘ |
| influenced |
later media reform movements
ⓘ
subsequent studies of press bias ⓘ |
| inspiredBy | Upton Sinclair's experiences with newspaper coverage of his work ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
American newspaper industry
ⓘ
journalism ethics ⓘ manipulation of public opinion ⓘ media bias ⓘ press corruption ⓘ |
| metaphorFor | commercialization of journalism ⓘ |
| notableFor |
advocacy of publicly funded press
ⓘ
early systematic critique of American journalism ⓘ influence on media criticism ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | English ⓘ |
| proposes |
greater transparency in media ownership
ⓘ
public control of news agencies ⓘ stronger regulation of newspapers ⓘ |
| publicationFormat | print ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1919 ⓘ |
| publisher | self-published by Upton Sinclair ⓘ |
| relatedWork |
The Goose-Step
ⓘ
The Jungle ⓘ The Profits of Religion ⓘ |
| timePeriodDescribed | early 20th-century American press ⓘ |
| titleOrigin | brass check system in American brothels ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Brass Check Description of subject: The Brass Check is a 1919 exposé by Upton Sinclair that harshly criticizes the American newspaper industry for corruption, bias, and manipulation of public opinion.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.