This timely study by a former investigative reporter zeroes in on the role of the journalist in a democratic society. Robert Miraldi explores the relationship between an objective reportorial stance wherein an audience is given verifiable, neutral "facts" and muckraking, when a reporter crusades on an issue to expose what he or she sees as evil. Including examples of muckraking from newspapers, magazines, and television, the volume traces the history of muckraking journalism and investigative reporting from the turn of the century, when a band of magazine writers were exposing political and business corruption, to the sixties and seventies when television and newspaper reporters continued the tradition of expose journalism. He locates the colliding traditions of journalism in democracy's demand that the press uncover crime and corruption while at the same time requiring that reporters observe the social process more than intrude. The collision between objectivity and expose informs this fact-filled study. The first chapter recounts Miraldi's experience as a New York City reporter tracking down illegal drug sales and offers an historical overview of muckraking journalism. Chapter Two analyzes the work of Ida Tarbell, David Graham Phillips, Samuel H. Adams, Will Irwin, Ray Stannard Baker, and Charles Edward Russell, six turn-of-the-century muckraking writers who were determined to be both objective reporters and partisan crusaders. The fall of muckraking journalism and its later reappearance with Edward R. Murrow's "Harvest of Shame" television documentary are the focus of chapters Three and Four. Chapter Five presents a case study of New York Times reporter John L. Hess' expose of NewYork State's nursing homes. Concluding with a look at factors that interfere with the work of journalists, Dr. Miraldi, in chapter Six, calls for a renewed spirit of activism as journalism enters the nineties. The book closes with a penetrating interview with Fred W. Friendly. This challenging history is must reading for scholars in journalism and mass media, practicing journalists and historians, students and teachers in college-level journalism and mass media courses, theory classes such as Press History and Mass Media in Society, as well as newswriting courses at all levels.

This collection of essays provides a critical and scholarly assessment of muckraking journalists at the beginning of the twentieth century. Contributors discuss how spiritual values led journalists to seek social change, through crusades and expos DEGREESD'es, sometimes at the price of public confusion and cynicism. They explore how the richest church in America was forced to clean up its tenement houses, how a Buffalo newspaper crusaded for improvements in living conditions for immigrants, why women journalists were keys to civic improvement efforts, and how muckraking and the crusading spirit permeated the press even in small towns. The authors place these stories in the context of various facets of early 20th century American culture.

These fresh perspectives on America's first investigative reporters will appeal to media scholars, historians and to professional journalists. An epilogue appeals for a return to the values and spirit of the muckrakers that might spur the public's interest and provide a moral center and ethic of caring in American journalism.

Seymour Hersh (b. 1937) has been the most important, famous, and controversial investigative journalist in the United States for the last forty years. After beginning his career as a police reporter in Chicago, Hersh went on to become a journalist for United Press International and the Associated Press, before coming to work for the New York Times in 1972. Since then he has published a number of controversial books about U.S. figures and policy, winning several prizes for his efforts, including the 1983 National Book Critics Circle Award. From his exposeof the My Lai massacre and its cover-up in 1969 to his revelations about torture at Abu Ghraib prison in 2004, Hersh has consistently captured the public imagination and spurred policymakers to reform. He has also drawn the ire of presidents with his revelations, including a revealing volume about the wild and reckless White House under John F. Kennedy. Tracing his journey from the streets of Chicago to the newsrooms of the most powerful newspapers and magazines in the United States, Seymour Hersh tells the story of this Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author. Robert Miraldi scrutinizes the scandals and national figures that have drawn Hersh's attention, from My Lai to Watergate, from John F. Kennedy to Henry Kissinger. This first-ever biography captures a stunningly successful career of important exposes and stunning accomplishments from a man whose unpredictable and quirky personality has turned him into an icon of American life and the unrivaled"scoop artist" of American journalism.