The original “investigative reporters”

1. By: Rose Ryan MUCKRAKERS The original “investigative reporters”

2. PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT • Response to Industrialization (late 19th century) • - Unrest among poor • - Excesses of rich • - Corruption in government • - “Decline in morality” • Called for social and economic reform at all levels of government • Challenged the way things were always done • Most concerned about what would happen to democracy if current situation continued

3. AMERICAN JOURNALISM • William Randolph Hearst (NY Sun) and Joseph Pulitzer (NY World) fought each other for stories, writers, and readership • One way to gain readership was to “sensationalize” the news • - Some scholars say Hearst caused the Spanish-American War by publishing information about a fictitious battle • Birth of the “investigative story” • - Exposed the scandalous conditions in factories and slums • The American public was ready to read; many had more leisure time and were better educated after the Civil War.

4. RESPONSE TO INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING • President Roosevelt agreed with many of the problems exposed by the journalists, but he called their methods “sensational and irresponsible.” • In a 1906 speech, he compared the reporters to a character in Pilgrim’s Progress “who could look no way but downward with a muckrake in his hands and was interested only in raking the filth.” • Thus, the term “muckraker” was born and used with a negative connotation by all who opposed the reporters’ efforts. • “Muckrakers” were seen as “nosy” and “meddling;” they had a hard time getting interviews with high-ranking officials.

5. MUCKRAKERS • “Muckrakers” wanted to arouse the public’s awareness of social problems; they did not offer solutions to the problems exposed. • Issues they tackled included: • - Corruption - Child labor • - Public health - Public safety • - Prostitution - Alcohol • Morality in “muckraking” • - Trying to uphold American values • - Feared the direction in which society was going • Wanted proactive government • National, well-known magazines like McClure’s, Collier’s, and Cosmopolitan all employed “muckraking” tactics to publish shocking exposes of political and economic corruption.

6. NELLIE BLY • Born Elizabeth Cochran on May 5, 1864. • When Cochran was 18 years old, she wrote an anonymous letter to the Pittsburgh Dispatch in response to a sexist editorial. She signed the letter “Lonely Orphan Girl.” • The editor of the Dispatch placed an ad in the Sunday edition of the paper asking “Lonely Orphan Girl” to introduce herself. She did, and she acquired her first job as a journalist. • Because it was “improper” for a woman to write for a newspaper, he insisted Cochran create a pen name for herself. She chose “Nellie Bly.”

7. THE ORIGINAL “UNDERCOVER REPORTER” • Bly is considered the pioneer/inventor of “undercover reporting.” • She focused much of her attention on women’s rights. • - She posed as a poor sweatshop worker to expose the cruelty and dire conditions under which women worked. • - Shop owners threatened to pull their advertising from the Dispatch. • Because Bly was reassigned to the “fashion beat,” she took a six month working vacation to Mexico, where she continued to write articles exposing the country’s poverty and political corruption. The articles got her ejected from Mexico.

8. BLACKWELL’S ISLAND • In September of 1887, Bly landed a job at Pulitzer’s New York World. • Her first assignment was to get herself committed to the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island. • Bly came back from Blackwell’s Island ten days later with stories about cruel beatings, ice cold baths, and forced meals that included rancid butter. • The story, which included illustrations, was published in the World.

9. “The insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island is a human rat trap. It is easy to get into the place, but once you are there, it is impossible to get out.” “In spite of the assurance that I would be released in a few days, my heart gave a sharp twinge. Pronounced insane by four ‘expert’ doctors and shut up behind the unmerciful bolts of a madhouse was an uncomfortable position.”

10. “The water was ice-cold and I again began to protest… My teeth chattered and my limbs were goose-fleshed and blue with cold. Suddenly, I got, one after the other, three buckets of water over my head– ice cold water, too, in my eyes, my ears, my nose, and my mouth. I think I experienced some of the sensations of a drowning person as they dragged me, gasping, shivering, and quaking, from the tub. For once, I did look insane…”

11. “The nurses returned to the sitting room and grabbed hold of an old gray-haired woman. My heart ached as she cried, ‘For God’s sake, ladies, don’t let them beat me!’ ‘Shut up, you hussy!’ said Nurse Grady as she caught the woman by her gray hair and dragged her shrieking and pleading from the room.”

12. PUBLISHING THE STORY • After ten days, a lawyer from the World came to free Bly. The story broke on the following Sunday, with Bly commenting, • “What, excepting torture, would produce insanity quicker than this treatment?” • The story embarrassed NYC officials into taking action. They investigated the facility and eventually approved more funds to improve the treatment of the mentally ill. • Bly was 23 when she published the story.

13. “AROUND THE WORLD…” • In 1888, Bly’s editor suggested sending a man around the world in less than 80 days (in response to Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days). • Bly threatened to do the same project in less time for another newspaper if her editor didn’t let her do it. He agreed. • On November 14, 1889, Bly began her world-wide journey at exactly 9:40:30 AM. • Readers bought copies of the World to keep track of Bly’s whereabouts. • She accomplished the journey in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/world/maps/index.html

14. ON THE FRONT LINES OF WWI • Bly was also the first female reporter to write from the front lines of a war. • She sent back first-hand accounts like this one, from a shed for cholera victims: • “One motionless creature has his cap on his head. Great black circles were around his sunken eyes. Black hollows were around his nose and his ears were black… Near him, completely covered by his coat was a form. Occasionally it shivered convulsively. That was all… Nearest us was another lying on his face. He never moved. Perhaps he was dead. Human creatures they were, lying there in a manner our health authorities would prohibit for hogs or the meanest beasts. I staggered out into the muddy road. I would rather look on guns and hear the cutting of the air by a shot that brought kinder death.”

15. IDA B. WELLS • In 1884, at age 22, Wells sued the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad for failing to provide separate but equal facilities for blacks. She won $500. • Wells began the “Free Speech and Headlight” in 1889, which delivered an equal rights message to blacks throughout the Mississippi delta. • Three black grocery store owners (all Wells’s friends) were lynched in 1891 in Memphis. • - “Free Speech” responded by encouraging blacks to boycott white-owned businesses and leave Memphis. • - Angry white mobs destroyed the paper’s offices and threatened to murder anyone who tried to resume publication.

16. Wells, cont. • Wells moved to New York and then to Chicago. • She married Ferdinand Lee Barnett, the owner of “The Conservator,” a black newspaper. • - In “The Conservator,” Wells published shocking lynching statistics and risked her life to gain first hand accounts of racial violence. • Wells also founded a community house in Chicago’s (then) poorest neighborhood. • In Chicago, she also founded “Alpha Suffrage Group,” the first suffrage group for black women.

17. Wells endured death threats and a hostile legal system as she fought for justice for African Americans, specifically in terms of her anti-lynching crusade. “Let the Afro-American depend on no party, but on himself for his salvation.”

18. DECLINE OF MUCKRAKING • After 1910, the popularity of muckraking declined. • Writers found the writing of these sensational stories increasingly difficult. • Publishers were pressured by their major financiers to back off. • Ultimately, muckraking... • - Exposed inequalities • - Educated the public • - Prepared the way for corrective action