The Jungle - Slanted Journalism

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In addition, he would describe the conditions of the factory often citing the rats, in chapter 14 he wrote, "This is no fairy story and no joke; the meat will be shoveled into carts and the man who did the shoveling will not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one.” The conditions of these building never came close to sanitary enough for packaging food. Sinclair made this very clear.

Upton Sinclair also pushed his political agenda and the story suffered from it. The slant and biased views of this book have two ulterior motives, the first layer presents itself against the meat packing industry, but the second and more difficult to detect layer contains radical Marxism. Upton Sinclair used the meat industry to convey his political message. Having the author’s viewpoint in mind while reading proves very important to deciphering the true meaning of something. In the early 1900s Upton Sinclair became a notable part of the Socialist Party. He did his research about the Capitalist industry he hated, the meat packing industry, prior to writing this book, he wanted to invoke change. Sinclair wanted to make people upset about the meat industry because if the Government noticed, they would hopefully take control of the industry, Government control equals communism. Communist play the long game and understand completely control and convincing takes time. He fought against the meat industry because it stood for everything he hated, capitalist industries. However, because of the overwhelming circumstances Sinclair has made for himself in trying to write about Jurgis involvement politically, keep the story flowing , and make sure he still conveyed his slanted opinions about socialism to convince the reader, the book falls of the rails. In the end of the book, the main character, like Upton, becomes unhinged, which causes the book to just ends.

Nevertheless, The Jungle as a whole had a great story and message, that slanted message that Sinclair tried to convey actually changed something for the better. Sinclair’s book due to its moving and troubling nature, inspired the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration, a federal agency that -- to this day -- has the responsibility for regulating and supervising the food, tobacco, dietary supplement and pharmaceutical industries in the U.S. Slant in books can often teach, inspire, and cause real change. This also proves how the book differs from the article. The authors of the news article (Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Missy Ryan) based accomplished no goal, except to twist people’s beliefs, they did nothing in the long run. Article slant only misinforms, manipulates, and confirms people’s beliefs fed to them by biased news so that they never question the narrative that they constantly consume.

Slant, although very effective, demonstrates necessary in the media when a fasit and communist state wants to keep people in government mindset with government run news to share information without the negative connotation. No author can create a truly unbiased piece of writing, unless it solely focuses on facts, a scientific journal for example. The only way to avoid the influence of slanted journalism is to read both sides of the slant so an individual, informed, and trusted opinion can form. Slant in a book though often presents itself in not nearly as dangerous of a manner, as it can often teach, inspire, and prove thought provoking. However, a reader must take the necessary precautions to truly understand all parts of an article or piece of literature, in order to reveal and comprehend the author’s true intentions.