In his most important and most dangerous book, The Brass Check, Upton Sinclair offers a detailed account of the way the Associated Press conducted itself in the libel suit that it pursued against Max Eastman and Art Young, the authors of this brilliant cartoon. The particular incident that prompted this cartoon was the way the Associated Press distorted its reports of the coal strike of 1912-13 to portray the strikers as the villains and the militiamen who killed them as the novel champions of virtue. As with the rest of Sinclair's worthwhile book, many of the tactics the AP employed resonate with devices they use today. If you're interested in reading The Brass Check, you can find it online readily enough. Sinclair wanted his book to be accessible to as many people as possible, so he never copyrighted it. Project Gutenberg has a copy available here: http://teleread.org/brasscheckfull.htm
