Modern Day Muckrakers
The muckrakers were a group of activist journalists. They focused their craft on corruption in politics, vicious business practices, and the conditions of the poorest Americans. Roosevelt would have preferred they covered stories of the advances brought forward in American society. As World War, I began the muckrakers grew unpopular to the American public. Most likely from a rally around the flag effect as well as oversaturation of “muckraking” storylines. (Defleur, 2010)
While the muckrakers’ focus was worthy (we should all focus some time on the downfalls of our society) we should be aware that journalists and their media outlets are responsible for representing the world as it is. That includes the shockingly unjust parts of our society as well as the areas we are excelling in. I believe the media industry has entered a second era of muckraking. The media-advertisement model has corrupted media outlets and journalists into covering conflict over progress.
Sarah Sobieraj and Jefferey Berry studied the outrage that cable news was brewing. They found out of the hours of footage they watched from Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC they found 89.6% of their sample contained one incident of
outrage (Sobierj, 2011, p. 26). Can all the news we consume be outrageous. Is everything that happens in our society outrageous? I believe this news orientation is not good for our society and harkens back to the era of the muckrakers.
In the last decade, I’m sure most readers would agree that our politics and our cable news has become highly partisan and highly polarized. However, that does not mean that that cable news outlets must follow suit. What we know though is that for people who like to watch the news, the outrage is added layer. If you are a more reasonable-minded person you may find such knoc-down drag-out fights a turn off. Yet for news lovers, the outrage and drama is enjoyable. So if outrage creates a loyal audience, and for cable news advertisers are key, then outage will rule the medium.
The modern day muckrakers are these outlets and journalists that continually critique politicians and society without providing equal coverage to the positive strides society makes. It cannot be true that everything that is happening in the world is negative. If it were, the human race would likely not have made it this far. For example, the COVID-19 vaccines are close to a miracle. The development of the vaccines happened in a exponentially faster rate than any vaccine has been produced in the past. The fastest vaccine produced in the past took 4–5 years. Instead of celebrating and explaining the technology that enabled us to create these vaccines, the vaccine production was a blip on the timeline. Furthermore, the lack of coverage opened the door for vaccine skeptics to flourish on social media.
More recently, cable news has been covering President Biden’s American Jobs Plan. This infrastructure bill cover’s a vast majority of issues that traditionally would not have been covered under the umbrella of infrastructure. The cable news has reported on the conflict between Democrats and Republicans over the bill, how the bill is less about traditional infrastructure, and what polls had found about Americans’ feelings towards teh proposed plan. I agree this is all newsworthy, but the coverage is unequal. What about interviews with citizen’s who think this bill would improve their lives or a detailed review of the bill. These would be much more boring segments, but much more educational.
In no way do I believe that the media should not question politicians or the downfalls of society. However, it is obvious to any viewer that the content of cable news and the news media overall generally focuses on negative framing and causes negative emotions. There is hardly ever a segment focused on joyous news. This is muckraking. The media outlets know it is profitable and until it is not, they will continue with this programming model.
Defleur. 2010. Shaping the American Mass Media: A Brief Overview. https://missouri.instructure.com/courses/50790/files/8676041?module_item_id=2540310 Accessed Apr 4 2021.
Berry, J. M. & Sobieraj, S., (2011). From Incivility to Outrage: Political Discourse in Blogs, Talk Radio, and Cable News. Political Communication, 28(1), 19–41. https://doi-org.proxy.mul.missouri.edu/10.1080/10584609.2010.542360
