What Happened to Muckraking?
At the turn of the twentieth century, journalists in America began to reassess their role as a check on the federal and state government. Reporters who once wrote straight news were rapidly evolving into investigative journalists, and corruption in American governments was starved of power by this new, nosier version of journalism. Starting in the early 1920s, the work of these investigative journalists began to have a measurable impact on Americans, if not the impact they assumed their work would have.
Upton Sinclair, who was privy to the disgusting standards of living of immigrants in the early 1900s, wrote The Jungle in effort to raise the overall humanity of these worker's lives and to minimize the impact political corruption had on their voting. However, the horrifying conditions in meat packing factories detailed in Sinclair's story disgusted Americans. Resultantly, the Food and Drug Administration was created (FDA), and the struggling immigrants were left behind for years later. Sinclair's work was the symbol of early twentieth century 'muckraking'- a term used for those who were willing to sift through America's dirt to expose social or political injustice.
Later in the century, The Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were assigned to what originally seemed a simple break-in story at the Watergate Hotel. Quickly after the arrest of the men involved, the mundane crime mutated into a series of investigative pieces that led to the indictment and resignation of former President Richard Nixon, changing the way Americans look at the role of reporters and the purpose of transparency in political affairs forever.
These men were the American media at its best. The true purpose of the press- beyond simply providing information for all Americans- is to act as the people's check on the government. The media is average Americans' eyes and ears; the reporters go the places the constituants cannot.
So where are the muckrakers today? In 2010, there are plenty of reporters and political commentators trying to stir up dirt (because, after all, dirt is what sells papers), but how many of them are actually muckraking, actually exposing social injustice?
Very few reporters truly expose injustices today, mostly due to the extremely small range of topics that are featured on mainstream news shows and in popular papers. The Rachel Maddow Show, however, often produces stories that are under-reported on and presents them in a muckraking-like way that focuses on the injustices being occurred. Still, even such an investigative program is unable to go all the way for these human-rights pieces, which are often reduced to short features directly before or after a commercial break. Other programs that attempt to muckrake almost always fall into a yellow-journalism trap, sensationalizing any bit of kicked up dirt in the name of scandal.
Muckrakers are rare, but the practice must be preserved if the press is to continue to carry out its most important role: that of a check on power, a noose for corruption.
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Upton Sinclair, who was privy to the disgusting standards of living of immigrants in the early 1900s, wrote The Jungle in effort to raise the overall humanity of these worker's lives and to minimize the impact political corruption had on their voting. However, the horrifying conditions in meat packing factories detailed in Sinclair's story disgusted Americans. Resultantly, the Food and Drug Administration was created (FDA), and the struggling immigrants were left behind for years later. Sinclair's work was the symbol of early twentieth century 'muckraking'- a term used for those who were willing to sift through America's dirt to expose social or political injustice.
Later in the century, The Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were assigned to what originally seemed a simple break-in story at the Watergate Hotel. Quickly after the arrest of the men involved, the mundane crime mutated into a series of investigative pieces that led to the indictment and resignation of former President Richard Nixon, changing the way Americans look at the role of reporters and the purpose of transparency in political affairs forever.
These men were the American media at its best. The true purpose of the press- beyond simply providing information for all Americans- is to act as the people's check on the government. The media is average Americans' eyes and ears; the reporters go the places the constituants cannot.
So where are the muckrakers today? In 2010, there are plenty of reporters and political commentators trying to stir up dirt (because, after all, dirt is what sells papers), but how many of them are actually muckraking, actually exposing social injustice?
Very few reporters truly expose injustices today, mostly due to the extremely small range of topics that are featured on mainstream news shows and in popular papers. The Rachel Maddow Show, however, often produces stories that are under-reported on and presents them in a muckraking-like way that focuses on the injustices being occurred. Still, even such an investigative program is unable to go all the way for these human-rights pieces, which are often reduced to short features directly before or after a commercial break. Other programs that attempt to muckrake almost always fall into a yellow-journalism trap, sensationalizing any bit of kicked up dirt in the name of scandal.
Muckrakers are rare, but the practice must be preserved if the press is to continue to carry out its most important role: that of a check on power, a noose for corruption.
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