Brandon Tara

JTC 311
February 18, 2015

Reading Report 3
Throughout the history of newswriting journalists have been able
to motivate the publics actions through their writing. Sometimes for
the better and the worse. In this case during the Progressive Era
newswriting took a major spin on political campaigns that resulted in a
decline of political efforts by the majority of the public. With the help of
Philips Theodore Roosevelt branded the form of writing as
muckraking, as found in this weeks lecture slides as the people who
clean the horse crap off the streets day in and day out. (p. 205) He was
insinuating that theses celebrity writers were in a way the bottom of
the ladder, scraping up whatever story they could get their hands on.
These muckrakers specialty during this time of activism and political
reform was to bring foreword the truth no matter the cost.
In the beginning of the Progressive Era there was a steady
decline in voting, which was brought out by the journalists themselves.
With more and more media outlets springing up all around the states,
the most essential news stories were much more covered. Thus began
the era of the muckrakers who took the less interesting or more
rigorous stories and turned them inside out which the outcome would
greatly effect their readers on a political level. Reporting bad news

about American institutions and branding some politicians scoundrels

was not a new activity in the press . . . For it was the discrediting of
some basic assumptions about how democracy worked that made
muckraking both shocking (as the authors intended) and (as they did
not wish) a message to pull back from political life. (p. 197) I believe
that the muckrakers just wanted to make it more relevant to the
community what the governments intentions were and how they were
acting on them. It is no different than what our reporters and
journalists do today, but if anything it increases the voting process and
concern, so that your voice can be heard through your vote for the
candidate or political motion that you yourself stand for.
In terms of civic and anti-civics, muckrakers set out to convince
the public that to vote meant that you are contributing to your country
regardless of your race or religion. By performing your civic duties to
each other and to the government, civics is a major part as a citizen to
unite and individualize yourself from others. Before the Progressive
Era, The issues touched their deepest concerns as members of an
ethnic group, while parties drilled citizens to act on their feelings,
were the two fundamental reasons that Americans voted. (p. 197)
During these times it was very common for people to be persuaded to
vote for parties where even if it not was in their best interest.
During this Progressive Era much of the attention was directed
towards politics and how it was believed that there was a notion that

some ethnic groups were at fault for the troubles of American

government and also show that parochial appeals would do no good.
(p. 203) Fortunately for these ethnic groups, muckrakers wrote to
refute these common misconceptions. Muckraking opened up the
perplexing variety of urban scandals to the whole nation and gave it a
vivid, documented picture of how far the metropolis departed from
fond memories (and folklore) of democracy in face-to-face
communities. (p. 202) The opening of these urban scandals helped
grow the surrounding communities in numbers as well as interests in
news stories and the politics that come with the stories. The
development of this specific writing allowed them to collaborate.
The art of deception inside the newspapers during the
Progressive Era took a major strike at the peoples political standpoint.
It is not so different from how we use Photoshop in todays magazines
and programs. For example, many of the major magazines like TIME
Magazine uses altercations to their photos to exemplify characteristics
that may not be the true meaning of the photo. Cosmopolitan cropped
the photo to take the senator off the road and chose a caption to make
it seem that he was idly sitting in his play thing (p. 207) The magic
and power that these newspapers had in the past and have developed
over time has the ability to trick the spectator in to believing or
misinterpreting the true message. In some cases this powerful effect

can be used for the onlooker to better understand the journalists

writing.
As the attacks strengthen against the political parties there was
uproar from the presidency. In 1906, Theodor Roosevelt made a public
address titled, The Man with the Muck-Rake to defend them from the
remarks against the political parties. (p. 212) TRs private papers
show that he had Phillips and Sinclair uppermost in mind that the term
muckraker was designed to blacken their names and the discredit
their point of view. (p. 212) The large issue was for the president and
other candidates to not be made fun of by the press. While his address
did little to stop these remarks pouring in to the publics mind. In recent
years this has not been addressed publically but I am sure that there is
much controversy with much of the news.
All in all, the Muckrakers of the past had good intentions to help
the community evolve along side the political system only if they did
not live by their intentions. The Muckrakers scoffed at politics as the
labored to make politics better. They said that traditional outlets for
political feeling led the wrong way. Party and ethnic loyalty were snares
that the good citizen must avoid. (p. 215) The power of the press is
directly shown through their continuous reports on what they believed
allowed for the new era for community members to reform the political
system for the betterment of the nation.