muckrakers

Cultural  

1. Authors who specialize in exposing corruption in business, government, and elsewhere, especially those who were active at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Some famous muckrakers were Ida M. Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, and Upton Sinclair. President Theodore Roosevelt is credited with giving them their name.

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Example Sentences

Investigative reporters called “muckrakers” also began publishing exposés of financial power and political corruption in mass-circulation magazines like McClure’s and Collier’s Weekly, setting an agenda for political reform.

From Salon

In the early 1900s, journalism, the muckrakers, became highly influential, raising awareness about many social ills, including child labor, unsafe working conditions and unsanitary food processing.

From Los Angeles Times

Like the muckrakers of an earlier age, investigative journalists bring to light what the powerful often want to keep in darkness.

From Salon

His Watergate reporting, with Bob Woodward at The Washington Post, brought down a presidency and inspired a generation of muckrakers.

From New York Times

Which is somewhat interesting with the muckrakers taking on Standard Oil, and you get to the present with some policy ideas, including things that people can do as individuals.

From The Verge