What Lasting Influence did Muckrakers have on Modern Magazines?

  

   The word Muckraker refers to a new writing style in the 1900s. The Muckrakers were first a reform-minded investigative journalism to expose the social issues and political corruptions and they largely publish their articles in the popular magazines.They would go deep down to dig the dirt and scandals to write about the truth to the readers. And later on, the muckraking became a tradition of the investigative journalism.  One of the famous muckraking journal was McClure's Magazine.

   The muckraking was a by-product that change the structure of magazine industry as well. The magazines used to be expensive, and due to the economic in the late 1800s, magazines got cheaper, more people would buy the muckraking magazines with appealing titles about deepest dirt on the social and political issues. The magazines found their own way to success. 

The lasting influence of the muckrakers is that using the appealing titles and stories to draw attention from the readers. The magazines still would go very deep down to stories that reveal the truth about the social and political issues to the readers. Although some of the muckraking magazines nowadays might already gone too far from revealing the dirt and scandals to creating them. The reporters might add something in their stories to make it look more interesting and dramatic, but the point is still to draw readers attention to make these magazines have better market.







My personal feeling toward these muckraking magazines in the U.S is that they are a lot different than what we have in China. We have similar muckraking magazines on the social issues, magazines that report the dirt and scandal from local industries, big companies and the life of celebrities, but we wouldn't have many stories about the government. As some of people may know that the journalism industry in China in related and controlled by the government, it's very hard to read this kind
of stories from muckraking magazines.