Muckrakers Successes and Failures

Muckrakers

As a profession, muckraking has gained a bad reputation ever since President Teddy Roosevelt compared certain journalists to the obsessive lad in the Pilgrim's Progress. In this 1906 speech, Roosevelt likened many journalists of his day to the man who stood in ooze, holding his garden tool and with his eyes fixed downward (Kiee 2001).

However, the "muckraking" techniques of these journalists have shined the light on many issues and practices that need to be addressed.

These exposes regarding corruption and unjust practices have led to public outcry and have spurred social change. After all, the reverse view would paint muckraking as a profession as a research and revelatory-based process that challenges the status quo. One person's muckraker is then another person's crusading journalist.

This paper looks at historic and modern examples of how muckraking has spurred important social changes in American history. The later part of the paper also looks at modern examples of muckraking, based on modern issues and using modern technology.

Given their importance in challenging the status quo, this paper argues that muckraking techniques are an intrinsic part of journalism, and form an important foundation of American democracy.

For many advocates of investigate journalism, the original motivations for what came to be termed as muckraking were rooted in spiritual values. Journalism professor Robert Miraldi (2000) believes that at the start of the 20th century, the original investigative reporters believed that many religious institutions were condoning injustice. Journalists exposed how most of the tenements and slums in New York City were actually owned by churches. These investigative reports generated an outcry that forced the churches to clean the tenements and improve the living conditions.

Other so-called muckrakers were motivated by a desire to "force the government to rein in corporations" that were abusive to their employees, to their customers and to the environment (Goldberg 2001).

For decades, crusading journalists have used the power of public opinion to agitate the government to safeguard the public's general interest.

Many historians of the press include people like Margaret Sanger, Mary Wollstonecraft and Maria Montessori in their lists of "muckrakers." Wollstonecraft, for example, exposed the miserable labor conditions of working women in the late 19th century. Montessori agitated for changes to the educational system that did not serve the needs of its students. Sanger wrote newspaper reports working conditions of women of the labor class before moving on to the more controversial topic of contraception (Jensen 2003).

A brief review of news exposes over the past century shows the important role played by investigative journalists in promoting social change.

John Steinbeck's Cannery Row highlighted the miserable conditions of working class laborers in California. Rachel Carlson's Silent Spring raised public concern over how unrestrained pollution is destroying the environment. The efforts of these writers to "dig" into the conditions they were investigating have yielded much positive social change (Kiee 2001).

More modern examples of muckrakers include Barbara Ehrenreich. In her book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Ehrenreich exposed many of the myths that prevail over the conditions of the poor. In her book, Ehrenreich (2001) shows how many laborers in occupations classified as "non-skilled" cannot make ends meet on minimum wage, despite working two or more jobs.

The cause of spurring social change is not limited to the written word. In 1911, for example, Lewis Hine took photographs chronicling the abuse of children who were working in Pennsylvania coal mines. In 1963, Charles Moore's photographs of the violent dispersals of civil rights activists were used as evidence during the congressional debates regarding the 1964 Civil Rights Act. James Nachtwey continues this tradition of powerful photographs by taking "antiwar" photographs in Sudan and around the world (Kiee 2001).

New technologies have also given rise to new methods of investigative journalism. Michael Moore, for example, has gained acclaim for documentaries like Roger and Me, and more recently, for Bowling for Columbine. Like their printed predecessors, these films highlight social problems like unemployment and violence, and challenge the relevant government authorities to find solutions.