Review of Jensen's book

Jensen

Communications studies professor and former director of Project Censored, Carl Jensen is passionate about the American media. Project Censored has been described as "America's longest-running research project on news media censorship."[footnoteRef:1] the author's background in communication studies lends a high degree of credibility to his work in compiling Stories that Changed America. Jensen is also a former news reporter himself, and so has insider knowledge about the way the newspaper and related news media work.[footnoteRef:2] in fact, the Upton Sinclair Website describes Jenson as being "involved with the media for more than 50 years as a daily newspaper reporter, weekly newspaper publisher, public relations practitioner, advertising executive, educator, and author."[footnoteRef:3] the author also has experience in the advertising and marketing fields, rounding out Jensen's understanding of how the American media works, what fuels it, and what can prevent it from contributing to the core values of democracy as the "fifth estate." Although Jensen takes great liberties to select the stories that he feels were the most important to American history, the stories that "changed America," the author's track record and knowledge of media muckraking makes the choices credible enough and worthy of consideration. Understanding Carl Jensen's background and point-of-view helps the reader to understand the purpose of Stories that Changed America. [1: "Carl Jensen." Accessed May 3, 2013, http://www.uptonsinclair.com/cjbio.html] [2: "Carl Jensen." Accessed May 3, 2013, http://www.dailycensored.com/writers/carl-jensen/] [3: "Carl Jensen." Accessed May 3, 2013, http://www.uptonsinclair.com/cjbio.html]

The thesis of Jensen's book is rooted in the idea that media muckrakers are "individuals, journalists, and other social reformers, whose words helped to change the course of history and improve life for others."[footnoteRef:4] Jensen claims that these individuals, and the stories they produced, had an indelible consciousness-changing impact on American society. These stories changed the course of history, because they removed the veil of deception that corporate propaganda can create. Jensen also claims that the stories selected for Stories that Changed America had a "major positive impact on society."[footnoteRef:5] the author is ultimately successful in showing (a) that muckrakers were and are social reformers that helped to change the course of history and improve the lives of others; and (b) that muckrakers like the ones whose words are published in Jensen's book have worked hard in spite of and because of "corporate and political corruption."[footnoteRef:6] Furthermore, Jensen achieves the goal of demonstrating why each and every story was included in the book and also why each of the stories did not just change America, but changed it for the better. For example, the author points out that civil rights leaders like Malcolm X raised awareness about the need for black empowerment independent of white pity. Jensen similarly identifies the ways that Rachel Carson's work directly led to the ban on DDT. [4: Carl Jensen. Stories that Changed America (New York: Seven Stories, 2002), 20.] [5: Jensen, Stories that Changed America, 20.] [6: Jensen, Stories that Changed America, 20.]

One of the exemplary muckrakers of the early twentieth century was Upton Sinclair. In Stories that Changed America, Jensen provides the reader with excerpts from Sinclair's most famous and groundbreaking work of semi-fiction on industrialization called "The Jungle." Although cloaked as a novel, the underlying story of the Jungle is based on Sinclair's journalistic interest in the meatpacking industry. Sinclair's imagery is poignant, in that it fuses the slaughter of animals with the suffering of the human beings working in the meat packing plants. "In these chutes the stream of animals was continuous; it was quite uncanny to watch them, pressing to their fate, all unsuspicious -- a very river of death," writes Sinclair.[footnoteRef:7] at the time the Jungle was published, immigrants were not given a voice. They were politically, economically, and socially disenfranchised just like the animals in the meat packing plant. Using the meat packing plant to represent the plight of low-wage immigrant workers all over America was a skillful choice for Upton Sinclair. [7: Upton Sinclair, "The Jungle," in Stories that Changed America, ed. Carl Jensen (New York: Seven Stories, 2002), 59.]

Rachel Carson was a writer and ecologist, long before environmentalism was part of the public consciousness. After World War Two, Carson realized the extent to which the government was permitting the use of toxic chemicals and wrote a book to expose the practice. That book was called Silent Spring, and it "challenged the practices of agricultural scientists and the government, and called for a change in the way humankind viewed the natural world."[footnoteRef:8] Jensen includes an excerpt from Silent Spring to show that Carson was up against one of the most lucrative industries in the world, and that although her work is unfinished, Carson made a huge impact on raising awareness and eventually her work got DDT banned. [8: "The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson," Accessed May 3, 2013, http://www.rachelcarson.org/Biography.aspx#.UYOWMCshKII]

Malcolm X's autobiography was arguably not a project undertaken as a form of muckraker journalism. The author started writing when he was in prison, and he comes to learn the power of the written word in overcoming political and social oppression. Malcolm X was overshadowed by Dr. Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement because the latter's message was more digestible and accessible to white Americans. Malcolm X advocated for black empowerment that was independent of the dominant culture. His work transformed African-American identity and consciousness, not least because of his embrace of the Nation of Islam.