Let's face it. The media clobbers us over the head with false news, opinionated stories, extreme one-sidedness with regard to political issues, and 'filler' stories on slow news days. It is our job as a people to be critical in what information we intake and what we should believe, but back in the time of the Premier of the Gilded Age and the Progressives, people were ignorant of the fact that the public media was dangerously corrupt. When this was realized, rebellious journalists decided to diverge from the normal path of news and attempted to bring even an ounce of truth to the public eye. These individuals were given the title Muckrakers, for their racking off of the muck and filthy scum off of the news that was force fed to the citizens, who had little to no choice of what opinion that they could hold.
Is there a group of Muckrakers existing today who are silently exposing the horrid
corporate corruption and government grafting, or has the small flame that existed in the public media been extinguished? The majority of people in this area of the country would say that the Democratic Party is the side that is exposing and fighting against the corruption on Wall Street and on Pennsylvania, but I believe differently. The Democratic Party gained the reputation for being the shining light after GEORGE W. BUSH's presidency. After those 8 years, people just wanted to flee blindly into the shelter of the Democrats. We should remember that Theodore Roosevelt, the archetype of Progressivist reformers, was also Republican Party leader. So, is obvious that the modern Muckrakers do not reside/hide within either of the two major parties. This leads me to believe that they do still exist, but their values do not match those of the Democrats or Republicans.
Surprisingly, the Muckrakers of today do not differ much from those of the first Gilded Age. Both of the two groups attempt(ed) to unmask the corruption and unfairness in the world of business and politics. They also both are and were groups of crusading journalists who went against the views of the other public media in an attempt to give the truth to the people. The only difference between the Muckrakers of today and yesterday is that they are less in quantity. Nowadays, most publications make shore that the items published were not against good moral values, but I feel that back in 1849, the newspapers were happy just because they had a story/article to publish. Now, if a journalist tries to go completely against the political correctness, he/she is instantly cut down by a wave of others like a small blade of grass. It would be much harder to find another Upton Sinclair or Jacob Riis in today's media than then.
So, in short, the Muckrakers of today, although fewer in quantity, are much like those in the Progressivist times.
I think you raise some good point here. Yet, I would have to posit that, in your own way, you are a part of the modern Muckrackers. The blogosphere and proliferation of internet based reporting (the notion of "i- reporter" being another example) is where the modern muckracker can be found. Certainly, we still see it in the media. Fox News believes it to be Muckrackers of the Obama Administration, while MSNBC was the Muckrackers of the Bush Administration, and CNN attempts to articulate itself of the Muckracker of both. Add this to the idea of internet reporting and I think you get a modern version of muckracking journalism. Another reason why it might not be as powerful today as it was back then is because the public has become smarter and more skeptical of the public back then. The fact that individuals now can levy successful law suits against corporations could prove this. Back in the heyday of Industrialization, this was not common. While Industry still possesses power, there are more checks on it than there was back then. This might contribute to why people are not as powerless and "left in the dark" as they were during the Industrialization time period.
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