When muckrake came up as the word of the day on my dictionary app one day, I decided to take a glance at it even though I knew the meaning. What I found got me to thinking more about words and the role they play in our culture and literature.Call me crazy, but I like to study words, and it is safe to say I am not the only one. In fact, you can even get a degree in linguistics or etymology, the study of words. I am not that diehard, but I do like to study the meaning of words, as well as where they originated, how they evolved, and if they are still in use. It is fascinating when words take on different meanings or are virtually eradicated from discourse. Yet, it is particularly noteworthy when words continue to be prominent in our culture despite the passage of time.
One such example of a word still in fashion is muckrake, which was first used in 1678 with John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. In this instance, the word was used in the noun form, which is a tool for raking up muck, such as dirt, waste, or waste matter (i.e. manure). Bunyan, however, used the tool as a symbol for the carnal mind, or rather lust. Eventually, the symbol took on the broader concept of the pursuit of wordly gain.When Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle in 1906, the term shifted to the verb form, meaning "to search for and expose real or alleged corruption, scandal, or the like, especially in politics" (Dictionary.com). As you may recall from studying this piece, "Sinclair's interests were political rather than literary," and thus, Sinclair, and others, were called muckrakers "because by exposing social evils they were raking up muck, or dirt" (Holt et. al 522).
Later in 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt gave his infamous speech "The Man with the Muck-Rake" with the intent to discredit yellow journalism, claiming it ruined the reputation of honest people. However, many in the industry took the muckraker title as a badge of honor and associated it with investigative journalism.I am fairly certain that by the time John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath in 1939, the American populace had grown accustomed to the practice of raking up dirt and publishing it in newspapers, books, etc. Nonetheless, many critics took great umbrage with Steinbeck for exposing corruption and placing him in the ranks with other muckrakers. Though I doubt Steinbeck cared much about this label one way or the other, he remains in the top tier of famous muckrakers in America.
My question for all of you is how is the term muckrake applicable to today, and what evidence can you find of it? In other words, what people or organizations are searching for and exposing real or alleged corruption, scandal, or the like, especially in politics? I don't want you to merely bash a person or organization. Instead, think about the people you know, whether personally or on the public stage, and ask yourself if they would be considered a muckraker and why? What has he/she done to expose social evils by raking up dirt? What does this person have to gain or lose from doing this?
One example that we see today is the PETA organization. They will do absolutely in their power to find dirt on people that hurt animals and use them for meat or enjoyment. Yes there are many people in this world that abuse animals and treat them poorly but PETA is using it in the sense that all people that own pets or have corporations treat them inhumanely. PETA finds any dirt possible and blames it on anyone that is associated with animals. The way PETA exposes this information is through magazines, their website, billboards, and etc. I believe that they are the perfect example of a muckraker.
ReplyDeleteProject Veritas is a organization that sets out to find corruption in politics. They go through the media and all of politics to expose the alleged corruption. They have a group of people that go undercover to unveil this corruption. They are consider muckrakers by definition but whether they actually uncover anything is up to the viewer. Project Veritas has claimed that they have uncover a lot of corruption in our political system. I think that the group does not have much to gain from this; instead, they want to show everyone alleged corruption in our government. In all, this group is muckrakers by definition.
ReplyDeleteOne example that I though of was WikiLeaks. The founder of this website, Julian Assange, hacks into other computers to get information on corrupt government. He publishes secret information from those file, so technically, he's breaking the law. The whole goal for this website is to bring important news and information from the government to the public eye. They all make sure that people that pass that information are not prosecuted for sending this classified information. I think that this is a good example of muckrakers.
ReplyDeleteThe one main organization that I could think of was PETA. They do all they can to punish people and make them look bad for making food out of animals. They believe that all people who do this are abusing the animals, but that isn't true at all. We need to make meat out of animals, or else we won't get a portion of the nutrients that we need. Some people decide that they do not want to eat meat, and that is their decision. With this said, they don't have any rights to try to make people think it is wrong to eat meat. I believe that they are a muckraker. They try to make everyone believe that making food out of animals is considered abuse, but I don't believe they should be able to do this.
ReplyDeleteAn example of a modern day muckraker would be green peace. While they want to promote the need and awareness of pollution and global warming they take exposing companies very seriously. On their website they say it is one of their main goals to expose organizations, people, and governments responsible for air and water pollution as well as global warming. They want to make the public aware of these individuals and expose them. They try to make the public believe that only specific organizations or governments are responsible for air or water pollution when its really a variety of components that resulted in air pollution. I think its okay to raise awareness of air and water pollution and global warming but putting the blame on certain companies is wrong.
ReplyDeleteI think that a great example of muckraker being used today would be Truthorange, the Tobacco Free Company. They have HUNDREDS of ads on just about everything we see with an overall goal of getting rid of tobacco. The website states, "#FinishIt", meaning end tobacco use. They rake up all of the negativeness of tobacco and just how bad the Tobacco industry really is with countless examples in their advertisements. The only thing they really gain is a better health rate in the world and an end to some pollution. I believe this is a great thing to do (ending tobacco use) but bringing out all of the examples from other companies may seem wrong to some but it is the truth.
ReplyDeleteOne recent example I can think of for a muckraker, is a group called "Team Internet". This organization is trying to fight for Net Neutrality and against large corporations like FCC, Comcast, Verizon, and many others. They try to reveal any information on these companies as they can, and have multiple times exposed bribery and blackmail between these corporations and state governments. I think "Team internet" is a good group that work hard to reveal the important details behind FCC's workings and I would definitely consider them muckrakers.
ReplyDeleteNowadays, the idea of muckraking is much more widespread and it's very common to see. Although it's considered far more acceptable today, some modern muckrakers are still surrounded in controversy. An example from the United States would be Edward Snowden,a hero to some and a traitor to others. Snowden was an employee of the CIA who leaked classified information about the NSA and how the organization was monitoring people's communication on a global scale. With this, he committed an act of treason, but at the same time informed the American people about the actions of their government.
ReplyDeleteThe public currently is split in their opinions of muckrakers. Some see them as valiant citizens just fighting for the truth, while others see them as troublemakers and slanderous, crooked people. A modern example of a muckraker would be investigative journalists or private detectives. These people look into corruption and deceit to try to find the truth.
ReplyDeleteA group that can be considered a muckraker of today is a group called Mercy for Animals. This group specifically focuses on fighting for animals to be treated right that are on farms. Usually the animals they fight for are ones going to slaughter plants. They have uncovered a lot of evil things that have been going on unnoticed. This group has done many many undercover missions to get this information. What they have to gain is just what they feel is right and to make this world a better place. They want to end the brutality of how some animals are slaughtered.
ReplyDeleteFor me, muckraker is a neutral term. Being a muckraker means you're doing society a favor or just putting your information and thoughts for public notice. Today, and form of media could be considered muckrakers for bringing up "dirt" on politicians, especially the current president of the US. Any news platform for example, like to share new things about Donald Trump everyday. His tweets, his family, his toddler like rage towards North Korea, are all considered the "dirt" the news brings up. The media mostly gains their own political stance when they bash on Trump because right now, it's more like a competition than just simply informing the public about their leader.
ReplyDeleteI think we can find plenty examples of muckrakers in politics, however a great example would be our own president. He's always trying to stir people up by bringing up things about Hillary, accusing her of this and that, or when he blames the media about over seeing things, referring to it as fake or whatever, while I don't mean to bash Trump or say any of this is bad, it is interesting to watch, it's something we don't usually see in presidencies.
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard the term "muckrake" very often. Though, it is often used in politics and businesses. An example of a muckraker would be Donald Trump because of how he calls people out for things they did or didn't do. I never really pay attention to politics but I've heard that Trump tweets a lot and bashes on other people and companies. By doing this, I assume that he both gains and loses followers and voters.
ReplyDeleteThe term "muckraker" is both positive and negative. To be positive a muckraker must be doing good for others by exploiting the truth. However, it can take a turn to be negative by telling things they may think are true but are definitely not. One prime example I can think of are those involved with PETA and those who go against the FFA and 4-H programs. I have read and article from PETA that claims 4-H is poisoning the minds of the children involved. I linked the article here: https://www.peta.org/blog/4-h-agricultural-programs-hardens-hearts/ . They state that 4-H teaches kids nothing about the animal or husbandry. Reading this article truly made me hurt inside. It pains me to know that people believe that. I can tell you from first hand experience that my family treats all of our animals in the most humane way. They are pampered so much that our dog gets jealous. I also have learned practically anything there is to know about them so I have the ability to treat them they way they need to be treated. Of course we know that they are to be slaughtered or sold but we know that even though we are sad now that food can make a hungry family happy and possibly survive. After the State Fair many of the pigs shown will be taken to Hormel foods where they will be processed and given to homeless shelters across the state. So, without the meat industry we would have a much more hungry world. And without 4-H and FFA programs many kids including myself would not have the knowledge to be able to lead and feed the new world.
ReplyDelete(Sorry about my rant, this topic just really tricks my trigger)
I think the term muckraker could be used to describe any news station/platform. They dig dirt up on famous people to entertain the public. This can be both good and bad, depending on what the dirt is. An example of this that I read about last week, was about celebrities and their "significant others", a lot of the information was already made public by the celebrities themselves. However, there were a few that seemed to be more of a scandal.
ReplyDeletePenelope Gazin and Kate Dwyer are two females who decided to co-found an online market for eccentric art pieces. Upon experiencing difficulty, and suspecting that it was because of some tech-industry sexism, they decided to make up a thrid founder for their business, this time a male whom they named Keith Mann, and create a separate email account for him, in which they would be responding to clients and tech helpers for him, in exatly the same way they would respond to clients who opted to email them. In their little experiment, they found that more people opted to email Keith than the both of them (the women) combined, and they not only got replies faster on his account, but they also found he was getting offers to help him out with tech problems or asking him if there was anything else they could do/get for him. Frustrated with the obvious sexism they were in the middle of, the two women decided to go public with their findings, admitting to making up Keith Mann and basically forcing men in the tech industry to admit and acknowledge the different treatment that they give to females.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of muckrakers in society today, one being Lavar Ball. He thinks his son is an amazing athlete and just likes to stur the pot. He makes outlandish statements about himself and others just to draw attention to himself. He loves to put on a show. Lavar Ball is an example of a muckraker
ReplyDeleteMuckrakers are still a valid thing. Look at our lovely Julian Assange. He is one of the site founders with wikileaks. He is a key figure for radical transperecy. He isn't a traditional reporter. He focuses on the whole picture of our society.
ReplyDeleteI see muckrakers as people who put information out to the world to see what everyone might do with it. This could also be called baiting the hook. It is often found in politics. This information may not even be true but it is something that can stir people up. Another place you can find muckrakers is in competing companies. Especially with cars. There is one commercial for chevy where they compare one car to six others stacked on top of one another and chevy makes their car look a lot better than the other ones. This is giving people a way to view chevy as better and it makes the other brands look bad. In some cases brands call each other out and make claims against each other which is a form of a muckraker.
ReplyDeleteI would say muckrakers are very much still apart of the world today. The media and internet are full of people just spilling words and hope that it draws your attention. Celebrities are a prime example. There are so many stories of scandals or other moments in celebrities lives that are either made up or have just been made completely askew from the original truth.
ReplyDeleteI would say muckrakers are still a big part in the world that we live in today. Media plays a huge role in this by bashing big organizations and certain leaders. But the one group of people that stands out the most to me is famous athletes. Famous athletes are always brought up in the news for tax scandals, abuse scandals and etc. Half of the time these aren't even true. The media is just looking to get the attention of everyone while they are hiding the actual truth.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the media platforms that we have in our everyday lives push for more muckrakers. It is easier to bash on people, things, organizations, etc. form "behind a screen". I think that PETA is a great example of a muckraker in the 21st century for many reasons, although not always in a bad way. They put out ads showing the worst possible situations for things acting like it is constant. There are circumstances where the campaigns and videos may be true but these bad things do not happen in every place. PETA tries to make most animal based foods are horrible because the animals "are always" treated in such bad ways. They are muckrakers because they are doing the absolute most to expose and state ever bad thing they hear.
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