Muckraker pronunciation
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News Format
In the Progressive Era (1890s–1920s), newspapers and magazines dominated the market with large audiences. In the cases of Riis and Tarbell, their work appeared in newspapers or was serialized in magazines before they were turned into books. Sinclair published The Jungle, a work of fiction, which he then turned into a series of news articles.
The muckrakers’ investigative focus grew out of the nineteenth century’s age of “personal journalism” and “yellow journalism,” which used a strong editorial voice and was scandal focused, respectively. Many of the muckrakers came from both of these styles of journalism. And while yellow journalism deservedly got a bad name for its tactics, wrongdoing was often exposed alongside the sensationalism, enraging the public, leading to civic discourse, and, in certain cases, policy change.
Photojournalism played a key role in muckrakers’ work. Newspapers published stirring and stunning photographs of child labor and inhumane factory conditions. Drawings of the photographs would also appear in newspapers due to cost and the technology
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Muckraker
Progressive-Era reform-minded investigative journalist in the US
"Muckrakers" redirects here. For the band, see The Muckrakers.
For the song by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, see Muckraker (song).
The muckrakers were reform-minded journalists, writers, and photographers in the Progressive Era in the United States (1890s–1920s) who claimed to expose corruption and wrongdoing in established institutions, often through sensationalist publications. The modern term generally references investigative journalism or watchdog journalism; investigative journalists in the US are occasionally called "muckrakers" informally.
The muckrakers played a highly visible role during the Progressive Era.[1] Muckraking magazines—notably McClure's of the publisher S. S. McClure—took on corporate monopolies and political machines, while trying to raise public awareness and anger at urban poverty, unsafe working conditions, prostitution, and child labor.[2] Most of the muckrakers wrote nonfiction, but fictional exposés often had a major impact, too, such a
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SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS was an American writer and muckraker. The muckrakers (a term coined by President Theodore Roosevelt) were writers of the Progressive movement of the early twentieth century who exposed the corruption of businesses or government to the public. Often accused of being socialists or communists, they played a significant role in social justice movements by constantly reporting on the dark corners of American society, especially corporate America.1 We might say that they were the Michael Moores of their day. Adams was widely known for his writings on public health and patent medicines; he is often given much of the credit for the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act.
Adams was born in Dunkirk, New York State, and graduated from Hamilton College. For some years, he worked as a reporter for the New York Sun. In 1900, he joined the staff of McClure's Magazine, a popular illustrated monthly. The magazine was both political and literary. Literary writers included such luminaries as Rudyard Kipling, Willa Cather, and Mark Twain. The political writers inclu
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