Upton Sinclair is omnipresent in 2011 (and beyond)

“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”?– Albert Einstein

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I’m always intrigued when Meatingplace blog reader, business advocate, and respected maverick Mr. John Munsell,?(tap here)?periodically posts the comment that industry needs a contemporary Upton Sinclair. I’ve always agreed with John and held it to be true that there exists amongst us modern-day Upton Sinclair’s; albeit in plural form.?????????????????

One of Sinclair’s contemporaries has to be investigative reporter Jim Morris.??????????????????

Morris, presently working as a journalist for the?Center for Public Integrity,?(tap here)?out of Washington D.C., indubitably evinces what a 21st?century iconoclast would be like. He was awarded in May of this year?(tap here)?the 11th?Annual Upton Sinclair Memorial Lecture for Outstanding Environmental Health & Safety Investigating Reporting during the 2011?American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) Conference?(tap here)?and Expo in Portland, Oregon.??????

The AIHA’s Social Concerns Committee started the Upton Sinclair Memorial Lecture to,?“show AIHA members what is beyond their plants and companies, to involve the public in the cause of safety and health, and to recognize good investigative reporting.”?????????

Nominees can be from different sectors of the media such as newspapers, magazines, the Internet, television and radio. The stated goal of the lecture is to,?“stimulate discussion in the industrial hygiene professional community about how it could have a bigger impact and be more pro-active to preclude future injuries and illnesses.”????

Morris, a journalist since 1978, has won over 50 journalism awards including the George Polk Award, the National Association of Science Writers Award?(tap here),and the Sidney Hillman Foundation Award,?(tap here)?among others; has been recognized by his peers with writing a number of enlightening and investigative articles centering on workers employed in high hazardous industries both domestically and internationally.???

During his memorial-award lecture titled; “Why Should I Care?’ Humanizing Workers Safety in the Media,”?Morris recounted to an audience of several hundred, in sometimes disturbing details, tragic modern-day stories of occupational deaths and/or serious/chronic injuries/illnesses, including the oh-too-often calamitous??consequences (akin to classic Charles Dickens novels) that the victim’s families are more times than naught faced with; ending up single-handed and alone.

Morris’ invigorating investigative reporting unveiled chronic and incurable lung diseases caused by exposure to silicosis in Texas?(tap here); horrific accidents such as refinery explosions in Texas and Washington states?(tap here); cancers caused from the PVC industry (synthetic resins) in Louisiana?(tap here): acute and chronic deaths in the construction industry in Texas?(tap here)?; and the wretched human loss of millions stemming from the asbestos industry?(tap here)?in such countries as Russia, China, Brazil and elsewhere.

When time permits, read some of his stories. I’ve contemplated often what?would have sparked the inimitable investigativebonfires/interests of the Teddy Roosevelt era muckraker clan, namely;?Charles E. Russell, Edwin Markham, Lincoln Steffens, Frances Kellor, William Irwin,?Ida Tarbell, John Spargo, Jacob Riis, and Jack London (among others)?in today’s diverse and ever-burgeoning global society/economy.

Perhaps similar sublime sparks of perpetual endeavors that have stoked up the venerable interests and commendable actions of the Jim Morris’ and?John Munsells’ of 2011????

6/1/2011 Meatingplace.com