Muckraker keystone

Oz Jensen 

The term “muckraker” comes from famed progressive, Teddy Roosevelt, who in 1906 said “The men with the muck rakes are often indispensable to the well being of society”, meaning society needed those who raked up the “muck” to have a better society.  

Journalism is the only profession directly protected in the bill of rights. This is essential because without a country's population having access to the truth, democracy will vanish. Muckrakers were journalists during the partisan era who wanted reform that exposed corruption from businesses, community leaders and government officials. 

The linotype machine, invented in 1883 allowed for much faster printing of papers, which enabled newspapers to print many more copies, much faster than even before. 

Since more people would be able to buy newspapers and print books, more people would read it which meant papers' influence skyrocketed. This also meant it would be more difficult for the powerful to be corrupt without any repercussions. 

The result of journalism having this much power was the public having more influence over policy than ever before. 

 Joseph Pulitzer, who bought The New York World in 1883, which he turned into The World was one of the most influential journalists in American history, who also went on to become a democratic representative from New York.

 Pulitzer helped develop the modern formula for a newspaper, as The World would include comics, sports coverage, women’s fashion, and was full of sensationalized writing to increase the amount of readers his papers had. 

In true muckraker fashion, Pulitzer would write about political corruption, exposing tax evaders, gambling rings, insurance fraud, monopolies, bankers and city corruption. Some of Pulitzer’s best moments include, helping to get Grover Cleveland elected, breaking up Standard Oil, and making campaign contributions public.

 Pulitzer’s writing achievements were so great that the top prize one can win in journalism is called the Pulitzer prize. However Pulitzer was not without business rivals. 

William Randolph Hearst was a very successful newspaper publisher, muckraker, and Joseph Pulitzer’s biggest rival. Hurst started his journalism career by turning the not doing well San Francisco examiner, which his father had bought years ago, and turned it into a profitable company. 

Hearst soon turned his attention to the bigger New York market, where he bought the disappointing New York Morning Journal, and turned it around quickly, by using sensational headlines, hiring great muckrakers like Stephen Crane, and having many illustrations. 

Hearst was extremely politically active, serving from 1903-1907 in the U.S House of Representatives, twice losing elections for mayor of New York City, and once launching an unsuccessful campaign for governor of New York. 

Despite these unsuccessful runs, Hearst continued to remain relevant through his media empire. Hearst’s papers helped push for war with Spain, through sensationalized reporting referred to as yellow journalism. 

Although Hearst had higher ambitions than just being a newspaper publisher, journalism would never be the same in part because of the changes he made, focusing on entertainment, and sensationalize perhaps even more than facts.

A major example of utilizing sensationalization was Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle, a fictionalized version of real events which exposed the meatpacking industry, meaning to show the untenable working conditions of the meat plants. 

What caught Sinclair off guard was the public was most concerned about the contamination of meat in the novel, not the plights of the workers in the plants. This public outrage led to the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. 

This was far from the only muckraking that led to large changes in the American landscape. A major contributing factor in the rise of muckraking was the “Gilded Age” , a time of immense economic inequality and mass corruption. 

 Ida Tarbell was another muckraker who wrote about inequality and corruption. Her expose on John D. Rockerfeller’s Standard Oil Company exposed it’s business tactics and directly led to the Supreme Court Decision that led to Standard Oil being broken down to 34 different companies. 

Another journalist that overcame the bigotry of the “Gilded Age”  was African American investigative journalist , Ida B Wells, who often wrote about disrimination in the south. 

After one of Wells’s friends was lynched, she turned her attention to unjust violence toward black men at the hands of white mobs. Her writing enraged the people of Memphis so much that they burned her printing press and forced her to move to Chicago. 

Wells also had many disagreements with white suffragettes. While she agreed that women should have the right to vote, Wells felt as though the women fighting for themselves were ignoring the injustices of African Americans. 

Wells dedicated her life to advancing the lives of African Americans through her writing, as well as founding the National Association of Colored Women’s club, as well as being an unofficial founder of the NAACP.

The term muckraker has a wide array of journalists associated with it, however most muckrakers proved the power of a free press.