A Muckraking Model

Abstract

Investigative reporting has long been considered a vital bulwark of democracy as a check on wrongdoing in politics and public policy. But a century after an American president coined a pejorative word to describe it—“muckraking”—exposé journalism has proved to be cyclical, waxing in some political periods and waning in others. While various studies have focused on the effects of investigative reporting, little scholarship has been written about its causes; and none has offered an overarching analysis that explains patterns of evolution over time. By using traditional historical methodology, this article traces the history of muckraking in America and proposes a unifying theory that explores its changes over the past two and a half centuries: a Muckraking Model based on supply and demand. This theory examines an important aspect of the intersection between press and politics and may have predictive value for the future as well as historical value about the past.