McClure's (cover, Jan, 1901) published many early muckraker articles.

The term muckraker is closely associated with reform-oriented journalists who wrote largely for popular magazines, continued a tradition of investigative journalism reporting, and emerged in the United States after 1900 and continued to be influential until World War I, when through a combination of advertising boycotts, dirty tricks and patriotism, the movement, associated with the Progressive Era in the United States, came to an end.^[1]

Before World War I, the term "muckraker" was used to refer in a general sense to a writer who investigates and publishes truthful reports to perform an auditing or watchdog function. In contemporary use, the term describes either a journalist who writes in the adversarial or alternative tradition or a non-journalist whose purpose in publication is to advocate reform and change.^{[citation needed]} Investigative journalists view the muckrakers as early influences and a continuation of watchdog journalism.^{[citation needed]}

The term is a reference to a character in John Bunyan's classic Pilgrim's Progress, "the Man with the Muck-rake" that rejected salvation to focus on filth. It became popular after President Theodore Roosevelt referred to the character in a 1906 speech.

History[link]

While a literature of reform had already appeared by the mid-19th century, the kind of reporting that would come to be called "muckraking" began to appear around 1900.^[2] By the 1900s, magazines such as Collier's Weekly, Munsey's Magazine and McClure's Magazine were already in wide circulation and read avidly by the growing middle class.^[3][4] The January 1903 issue of McClure's is considered to be the official beginning of muckraking journalism,^[5] although the muckrakers would get their label later. Ida M. Tarbell ("The History of Standard Oil"), Lincoln Steffens ("The Shame of Minneapolis") and Ray Stannard Baker ("The Right to Work"), simultaneously published famous works in that single issue. Claude H. Wetmore and Lincoln Steffens' previous article "Tweed Days in St. Louis", in McClure's October 1902 issue was called the first muckraking article.

Changes in journalism prior to 1903[link]

Julius Chambers

Nellie Bly

The muckrakers would become known for their investigative journalism. Investigations of corruption and social problems had already been introduced into the newspapers of the late 19th century by publishers and journalists during the eras of "personal journalism" —a term historians Emery and Emery used in The Press and America (6th ed.) to describe the 19th century newspapers that were steered by strong leaders with an editorial voice (p. 173)— and yellow journalism.

The muckrakers were influenced by both eras. One of the biggest urban scandals of the post-Civil War era was the corruption and bribery case of Tammany boss William M. Tweed in 1871 that was uncovered by newspapers. Lincoln Steffens titled his first muckraking article "Tweed Days in St. Louis" in comparison with the New York case. While some muckrakers had already worked for reform newspapers of the personal journalism variety, such as Steffens who was a reporter for the New York Evening Post under Edwin Lawrence Godkin,^[6] other muckrakers had worked for yellow journals before moving on to magazines around 1900, such as Charles Edward Russell who was a journalist and editor of Joseph Pulitzer's New York World.^[7] Publishers of yellow journals, such as Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, were more intent on increasing circulation through scandal, crime, entertainment and sensationalism.^[8]

Just as the muckrakers became well known for their crusades, journalists from the eras of "personal journalism" and "yellow journalism" had gained fame through their investigative articles, including articles that exposed wrongdoing:

Julius Chambers, New York Tribune, is considered by many to be the original muckraker^{[citation needed]}. Chambers undertook a journalistic investigation of Bloomingdale Asylum in 1872, having himself committed with the help of some of his friends and his newspaper's city editor. His intent was to obtain information about alleged abuse of inmates. When articles and accounts of the experience were published in the Tribune, it led to the release of twelve patients who were not mentally ill, a reorganization of the staff and administration of the institution and, eventually, to a change in the lunacy laws.^[9] This later led to the publication of the book A Mad World and Its Inhabitants (1876). From this time onward, Chambers was frequently invited to speak on the rights of the mentally ill and the need for proper facilities for their accommodation, care and treatment.^[10]

Nellie Bly, another yellow journalist, used the undercover technique of investigation in reporting "Ten Days In The Mad-House," her 1887 exposé on patient abuse at Bellevue Mental Hospital, first published as a series of articles in The World newspaper and then as a book. Nellie would go on to write more articles on corrupt politicians, sweat-shop working conditions and other societal injustices.

Other works that predate the muckrakers[link]

• Helen Hunt Jackson (1831–1885) — A Century of Dishonor, U.S. policy regarding Native Americans.
• Henry Demarest Lloyd (1847–1903) — Wealth Against Commonwealth, exposed the corruption within the Standard Oil Company.
• Ida B. Wells (1862–1931) — an author of a series of articles concerning Jim Crow laws and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in 1884, and co-owned the newspaper The Free Speech in Memphis in which she began an anti-lynching campaign.
• Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913(?)) — author of a long-running series of articles published from 1883 through 1896 in The Wasp and the San Francisco Examiner attacking the Big Four and the Central Pacific Railroad for political corruption.

The muckrakers appeared at a moment when journalism was undergoing changes in style and practice.^{[citation needed]} In response to yellow journalism, which had exaggerated facts, objective journalism, as exemplified by The New York Times under Adolph Ochs after 1896, turned away from sensationalism and reported facts with the intention of being impartial and a newspaper of record.^[11] The growth of wire services had also contributed to the spread of the objective reporting style. Muckraking publishers like Samuel S. McClure, also emphasized factual reporting,^[5] but he also wanted what historian Michael Schudson had identified as one of the preferred qualities of journalism at the time, namely, the mixture of "reliability and sparkle" to interest a mass audience.^[12] In contrast with objective reporting, the journalists, whom Roosevelt dubbed "muckrakers", saw themselves primarily as reformers and were politically engaged.^[13] Journalists of the previous eras were not linked to a single political, populist movement as the muckrakers were associated with Progressive reforms. While the muckrakers continued the investigative exposures and sensational traditions of yellow journalism, they wrote to change society. Their work reached a mass audience as circulation figures of the magaziness rose on account of visibility and public interest.^{[citation needed]}

Magazines[link]

Magazines were the leading outlets for muckraking journalism. Samuel S. McClure and John Sanborn Phillips started McClure's Magazine in May 1893. McClure led the magazine industry by cutting the price of an issue to 15 cents, attracting advertisers, giving audiences illustrations and well-written content and then raising ad rates after increased sales, with Munsey's and Cosmopolitan following suit.^[14]

McClure sought out and hired talented writers, like the then unknown Ida M. Tarbell or the seasoned journalist and editor Lincoln Steffens. The magazine's pool of writers were associated with the muckraker movement, such as Ray Stannard Baker, Burton J. Hendrick, George Kennan (explorer), John Moody (financial analyst), Henry Reuterdahl, George Kibbe Turner, and Judson C. Welliver, and their names adorned the front covers. The other magazines associated with muckraking journalism were American Magazine (Lincoln Steffens), Arena (G.W. Galvin and John Moody), Collier's Weekly (Samuel Hopkins Adams, C.P. Connolly, L.R. Glavis, Will Irwin, J.M. Oskison, Upton Sinclair), Cosmopolitan (Josiah Flynt, Alfred Henry Lewis, Jack London, Charles P. Norcross, Charles Edward Russell), Everybody's Magazine (William Hard, Thomas William Lawson, Benjamin B. Lindsey, Frank Norris, David Graham Phillips, Charles Edward Russell, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, Merrill A. Teague, Bessie and Marie Van Vorst), Hampton's (Rheta Childe Dorr, Benjamin B. Hampton, John L. Mathews, Charles Edward Russell, and Judson C. Welliver), The Independent (George Walbridge Perkins, Sr.), Outlook (William Hard), Pearson's Magazine (Alfred Henry Lewis, Charles Edward Russell), Twentieth Century (George French), and World's Work (C.M. Keys and Q.P.).^[5] Other titles of interest include Chatauquan, Dial, St. Nicholas. In addition, Theodore Roosevelt wrote for Scribner's Magazine after leaving office.

Origin of the term, Theodore Roosevelt[link]

Theodore Roosevelt

Pilgrim's Progress, a first edition

After President Theodore Roosevelt took office in 1901, he began to manage the press corps and to do so he elevated his press secretary to cabinet status and initiated press conferences. The muckraking journalists who emerged around 1900, like the muckraking Lincoln Steffens, were not as easy for Roosevelt to manage as the objective journalists, and the President gave Steffens access to the White House and interviews to steer stories his way.^[15][16]

While he may never have used the term himself, the origin of the "muckraker" is attributed to President Theodore Roosevelt, who, during a speech delivered on April 14, 1906, and on the occasion of dedicating the U.S. House of Representatives office building, drew on a character from John Bunyan’s 1678 classic, Pilgrim’s Progress, saying:

“... you may recall the description of the Man with the Muck-rake, the man who could look no way but downward with the muck-rake in his hands; Who was offered a celestial crown for his muck-rake, but who would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the filth of the floor.”^[17]

While cautioning about possible pitfalls of keeping one's attention ever trained downward, "on the muck," Roosevelt emphasized the social benefit of investigative muckraking reporting, saying:

There are, in the body politic, economic and social, many and grave evils, and there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them. There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil man whether politician or business man, every evil practice, whether in politics, in business, or in social life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine, or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful.

—Theodore Roosevelt^[17]

The muckrakers themselves proudly adopted the label.^[18]

The term eventually came to be used in reference to investigative journalists^{[citation needed]} who reported about and exposed issues such as crime, fraud, waste, public health and safety, graft, illegal financial practices. A muckraker's reporting may span businesses and government.

Early 20th century muckraking[link]

Early Writers of the Muckraking Tradition

Ray Stannard Baker   Lincoln Steffens   Ida M Tarbell   Upton Sinclair   Will Irwin   David Graham Phillips   Jacob Riis   Charles Edward Russell   William English Walling

Some of the key documents that came to define the work of the muckrakers were:

Ray Stannard Baker published "The Right to Work" in McClure's Magazine in 1903, about coal mine conditions, a coal strike, and the situation of non-striking workers (or scabs). Many of the non-striking workers had no special training or knowledge in mining, since they were simply farmers looking for work. His investigative work portrayed the dangerous conditions in which these people worked in the mines, and the dangers they faced from union members who did not want them to work.

Lincoln Steffens published “Tweed Days in St. Louis”, in which he profiled corrupt leaders in St. Louis, in October, 1902, in McClure’s Magazine.^[19]

Ida Tarbell published The Rise of the Standard Oil Company in 1902, providing insight into the manipulation of trusts. One trust they manipulated was with Christopher Dunn Co. She followed that work with The History of The Standard Oil Company: the Oil War of 1872, which appeared in McClure's Magazine in 1908.

Upton Sinclair published The Jungle in 1906, which revealed conditions in the meat packing industry in the United States and was a major factor in the establishment of the Pure Food and Drug Act. Sinclair wrote the book with the intent of addressing unsafe working conditions in that industry, not food safety. Sinclair was not a professional journalist but his story was first serialized before being published in book form. Sinclair considered himself to be a muckraker.

" The Treason of the Senate: Aldrich, the Head of it All", by David Graham Phillips, published as a series of articles in Cosmopolitan magazine in February, 1906, described corruption in the U.S. Senate.

The Great American Fraud (1905) by Samuel Hopkins Adams revealed fraudulent claims and endorsements of patent medicines in America. This article shed light on the many false claims that pharmaceutical companies and other manufactures would make as to the potency of their medicines, drugs and tonics. Using the example of Peruna in his article, Adams described how this tonic, which was made of seven compound drugs and alcohol,^[20] did not have “any great potency”.^[20] Manufacturers sold it at an obscene price and hence made immense profits. His work forced a crackdown on a number of other patents and fraudulent schemes of medicinal companies.

Many other works by muckrakers brought to light a variety of issues in America during the Progressive era.^[20] These writers focused on a wide range of issues including the monopoly of Standard Oil; cattle processing and meat packing; patent medicines; child labor; and wages, labor, and working conditions in industry and agriculture. In a number of instances, the revelations of muckraking journalists led to public outcry, governmental and legal investigations, and, in some cases, legislation was enacted to address the issues the writers' identified, such as harmful social conditions; pollution; food and product safety standards; sexual harassment; unfair labor practices; fraud; and other matters. The work of the muckrakers in the early years, and those today, span a wide array of legal, social, ethical and public policy concerns.

Muckrakers and their works[link]

• Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871–1958) — The Great American Fraud (1905), exposed false claims about patent medicines
• Ray Stannard Baker (1870–1946) — of McClure's & The American Magazine
• Burton J. Hendrick (1870–1949) — "The Story of Life Insurance" May - November 1906 McClure's
• Frances Kellor (1873–1952) — studied chronic unemployment in her book Out of Work (1904)
• Thomas William Lawson (1857–1924) Frenzied Finance (1906) on Amalgamated Copper stock scandal
• Gustavus Myers (1872–1942) - documented corruption in his first book "The History of Tammany Hall" (1901) unpublished, Revised edition, Boni and Liveright, 1917. His second book (in three volumes) related a "History of the Great American Fortunes" Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1909–1910 ; Single volume Modern Library edition, New York, 1936. Other works include "History of The Supreme Court of the United States" Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1912. "A History of Canadian Wealth" Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1914. "History of Bigotry in the United States" New York: Random House, 1943 Published posthumously.
• Edwin Markham (1852–1940) - published an exposé of child labor in Children in Bondage (1914)
• Frank Norris (1870–1902) The Octopus
• Mrs. Fremont Older (1856–1935) - wrote on San Francisco corruption and on the case of Tom Mooney
• Jacob Riis (1849–1914) - How the Other Half Lives, the slums
• Charles Edward Russell (1860–1941) — investigated Beef Trust, Georgia's prison
• Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) — The Jungle (1906), U.S. meat-packing industry, and the books in the "Dead Hand" series that critique the institutions (journalism, education, etc.) that could but did not prevent these abuses.
• John Spargo (1876–1966) — American reformer and author, The Bitter Cry of Children (child labor)
• Lincoln Steffens (1866–1936) The Shame of the Cities (1904)
• Ida M. Tarbell (1857–1944) exposé, The History of the Standard Oil Company
• John Kenneth Turner — (1879–1948) author of Barbarous Mexico (1910), an account of the exploitative debt-peonage system used in Mexico under Porfirio Díaz.

Impact[link]

According to Fred J. Cook, the muckrakers' journalism resulted in litigation or legislation that had a lasting impact, such as the end of Standard Oil's monopoly over the oil industry, the establishment of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, the creation of the first child labor laws in the United States around 1916. Their reports exposed bribery and corruption at the city and state level, as well as in Congress, that led to reforms and changed election results.

"The effect on the soul of the nation was profound. It can hardly be considered an accident that the heyday of the muckrakers coincided with one of America's most yeasty and vigorous periods of ferment. The people of the country were aroused by the corruptions and wrongs of the age -- and it was the muckrakers who informed and aroused them. The results showed in the great wave of progressivism and reform cresting in the remarkable spate of legislation that marked the first administration of Woodrow Wilson from 1913 to 1917. For this, the muckrakers had paved the way."^[7]

Other changes that resulted from muckraker articles include the reorganization of the U.S. Navy (after Henry Reuterdahl published a controversial article in McClure's). Articles like David Graham Phillip's "Treason of the Senate" were used to change the way Senators were elected by the Seventeenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.^{[citation needed]}

Second half of the 20th century[link]

The influence of the early muckrakers continued to inspire journalists and non-journalists alike long after the progressive era had ended. The journalism and long-form works of non-journalists which yielded important news and developments and was done in the spirit of reform during this period include:

• Paul Y. Anderson (August 29, 1893 – December 6, 1938) is best known for his reporting of a race riot and the Teapot Dome scandal.
• Rachel Carson, (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) a marine biologist who became a famous writer, best known for her 1962 book Silent Spring, which confronted the chemical industry and helped to spur legislation for regulation and control of DDT and other industrially and domestically used substances.
• Claud Cockburn (1904–1981) - In Time of Trouble (1956), A Discord of Trumpets
• Jessica Mitford (1917–1996) — British born author of The American Way of Death (US Funeral Industry), Kind and Usual Punishment and Making of a Muckraker (collection on various topics including writing schools)
• Ralph Nader,Unsafe at Any Speed (1965) led to reforms in automotive manufacturing in the United States.
• George Seldes (1890–1995) — Freedom of the Press (1935) and Lords of the Press (1938), blacklisted during the 1950s period of McCarthyism.
• I.F. Stone (1907–1989), known for his writings about McCarthyism and Vietnam War in The Nation and in his own newsletter I. F. Stone's Weekly.
• Casey Swint (1904–1999) - weekly editor of Atlanta Journal Constitution, wrote Keys to the City (non-fiction book about influence of political bosses on Atlanta politics). Early Civil Rights advocate.
• (Louis) Studs Terkel (May 16, 1912 – October 31, 2008) — Chicago writer, journalist, DJ, and oral historian

Contemporary muckrakers[link]

• Ben Bagdikian — (b. 1920, Ottoman Empire) editor, journalist and major American Media Critic, also the dean emeritus of the University of California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism; author of The Media Monopoly and The New Media Monopoly
• Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele — longtime investigative reporting team, now with Vanity Fair.
• Wayne Barrett — investigative journalist, senior editor of the Village Voice; wrote on mystique and misdeeds in Rudy Giuliani's conduct as mayor of New York City, Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11 (2006)
• Richard Behar — investigative journalist, two-time winner of the 'Jack Anderson Award'. Anderson himself once praised Behar as "one of the most dogged of our watchdogs"
• Chris Hedges — investigative journalist, columnist for Truthdig, Harper's Magazine, author.
• Noam Chomsky (b. 1928) - Prolific author, high-level, observant, circumspect muckraker working within the academic landscape.
• CounterPunch newsletter describing its mission as "muckraking with a radical attitude", published in the United States, edited by, among others, Alexander Cockburn
• Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941) — journalist and author - Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
• Stuart Goldman — investigative reporter, critic, syndicated columnist.
• Juan Gonzalez — investigative reporter, columnist in New York Daily News
• Amy Goodman (b. 1957) — broadcast journalist, host of Pacifica Radio Network's program Democracy Now!
• David Ray Griffin - theologian, philosopher, author; leading academic critic of federal government's explanation of 9-11 events; author of "9/11 Ten Years Later: When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed" (2011)
• Beau Hodai (b. 1981) - investigative reporter In These Times, Extra!, exposed American Legislative Exchange Council, Koch Industries influence, for-profit private prison industry, Tea Party movement
• John Howard Griffin (1920–1980) — white journalist who disguised himself as a black man to write about racial injustice in the south
• Seymour Hersh — My Lai massacre, Israeli nuclear weapons program, Henry Kissinger, the Kennedys, 2003 invasion of Iraq, Abu Ghraib abuses
• Malcolm Johnson — exposed organized crime on the New York waterfront
• Jonathan Kwitny (1941–1998) — wrote numerous investigative articles for The Wall Street Journal
• Joshua Micah Marshall - writer and journalist, operates the muckraking blog TPM Muckraker, responsible for helping to break the 2006-2007 US Attorney firing scandal, the Duke Cunningham corruption case and others.
• Stephen Mayne — shareholder-activist and founder of crikey.com.au
• Mark Crispin Miller — professor and writer; has written on 2000 and 2004 contested elections
• Michael Moore — documentary filmmaker, director of Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 911, and Sicko
• Ralph Nader — consumer rights advocate; Unsafe at Any Speed (1965), exposed unsafe automobile manufacturing
• Allan Nairn — Indonesian slaughter of East Timorese Dili Massacre, US backing of Haitian death squad "Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haïti"
• Jack Newfield — muckraking columnist; wrote for New York Post
• Alexey Navalny — Russian lawyer and blogger, investigating and writing about corruption
• Greg Palast (b. 1952) — politics and elections issues, Exxon Valdez, international corporate crime, corruption, reporter for British Broadcasting Corporation.
• John Pilger (b. 1939) — award-winning war correspondent, film maker and author
• Anna Politkovskaya — murdered Russian journalist critical of the Kremlin
• Jeffrey Robinson - author of The Laundrymen - Inside money laundering, the world's third largest business
• Jeremy Scahill - author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, contributor to Democracy Now!
• Eric Schlosser — author of Fast Food Nation, an exposé of fast food in American culture
• Morgan Spurlock — American filmmaker; exposed through example the dangers of McDonalds in his documentary Super Size Me
• Maia Szalavitz - author of Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids, an expose of abuse in the unregulated troubled teen industry and controversy surrounding the methods and philosophy behind tough love behavior modification.
• Matt Taibbi an American author and polemical journalist for Rolling Stone and Men's Journal
• Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) — American journalist and author credited with the invention of gonzo journalism
• Günter Wallraff - German journalist who famously makes extensive use of undercover journalism
• Gary Webb (1955–2004) — investigated Contra-crack cocaine connection, published as Dark Alliance (1999)
• Gary Weiss — exposed the Mob on Wall Street, described by Barron's Magazine as "an old-time gumshoe, with a soupçon of little-guy champion Jimmy Breslin and a dash of 1950s bad-boy comic Lenny Bruce"
• Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein — journalists for The Washington Post on the Watergate scandal; authors of All the President's Men, non-fiction account of the scandal
• Adrian Wojnarowski — NBA columnist that has published articles about corruption and secrets of the league.
• Savannah Corralez - College professor that teaches history.

See also[link]

Journalism portal

• History of American newspapers

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Cook, Fred J. (1972). The Muckrakers. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co.
• Gallagher, Aileen (2006). The Muckrakers, American Journalism During the Age of Reform. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group.
• Regier, C. C. (1957). The Era of the Muckrakers. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith.
• Swados, Harvey (Ed). (1962). Years of Conscience: The Muckrakers. Cleveland: World Publishing Co.
• Weinberg, Arthur and Lila (Eds). (1964). The Muckrakers: The Era in Journalism that Moved America to Reform, the Most Significant Magazine Articles of 1902–1912. New York: Capricon Books.
• Wilson, Harold S. (1970). McClure's Magazine and the Muckrakers. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 069104600X.

External links[link]

• The Wiktionary entry for muckraker
• Original Nellie Bly articles at Nellie Bly Online

George Seldes (/ˈsɛldəs/ SEL-dəs^[aa];^[4] November 16, 1890 in Alliance Colony, New Jersey – July 2, 1995 in Windsor, Vermont) was an American investigative journalist and media critic. The writer and critic Gilbert Seldes was his younger brother. Actress Marian Seldes is his niece.^[5]

Influenced by Lincoln Steffens, his career began when he was nineteen years old and was hired at the Pittsburgh Leader.^[5] In 1914, he was appointed night editor of the Pittsburgh Post.

In 1916, he went to the United Press in London and, starting in 1917, during World War I, he moved to France to work at the Marshall Syndicate. While there, he interviewed Paul von Hindenburg, the supreme commander of the German Army. Hindenburg commented on the defeat of Germany in the war, including U.S. involvement; however this interview was censored by the U. S. military. Seldes would later comment that the publishing of this interview could have avoided the rising of the Nazis to power and, thus, World War II.^[6][7]

After World War I, he spent ten years as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. In 1922, he interviewed Vladimir Lenin and, in 1923, got expelled from the Soviet Union, along with three colleagues, for disguising news reports as personal letters; a letter his publisher wrote for the Soviets only facilitated his expulsion.^[8] The newspaper then sent him to Italy, where he reported on opposition leader Giacomo Matteotti's murder, implicated Benito Mussolini in Matteotti's death, and was again expelled.^[9]

In 1927, he became a reporter for the Chicago Tribune in Mexico, where he criticized the use of the country's mineral rights by American companies. Later, he returned to Europe; however, he was increasingly sidelined since his political ideas didn't match with those of the newspaper's owner.

He then became a freelance reporter and author, writing a series of books and criticisms and, in 1940, founded a newsletter, In Fact, which brought attention to how the National Association of Manufacturers was able to use its advertising dollars to produce news stories favourable to its members and to suppress news stories unfavourable to them.^[3]

Having both staunch admirers and strong critics, Seldes influenced many younger journalists. He received an award for professional excellence from the Association for Education in Journalism in 1980,^[5] and a George Polk Award for his life's work in 1981.^[10] Seldes also served on the board of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).^[11]

Early years[link]

George Seldes was born November 16, 1890 to ethnic Jewish emigres from Russia in Alliance Colony, a utopian community in New Jersey.^[12][13]

When he was nineteen, Seldes went to work at the Pittsburgh Leader. For this newspaper, he interviewed a saleswoman who had filed a rape complaint against the son of the owner on a large department store; however, the story was not published, and Seldes became outraged when the advertising department of the newspaper blackmailed the owner into buying more advertising.^[5] In 1914, he was appointed night editor of the Pittsburgh Post. As a young journalist, he was influenced by the investigative journalism of muckraker Lincoln Steffens, whom he met in 1919.

World War I[link]

In 1916, Seldes moved to London where he worked for the United Press. When the United States joined the First World War in 1917, Seldes was sent to France where he worked as the war correspondent for the Marshall Syndicate.

At end of the war, he obtained an exclusive interview with Paul von Hindenburg, the supreme commander of the German Army, in which Hindenburg acknowledged the role America had played in defeating Germany. "The American infantry," said Hindenburg, "won the World War in battle in the Argonne." Seldes and the others were accused of breaking the Armistice and were court martialed. They were also forbidden to write anything about the interview and it never appeared in American news media. Seldes believed that blocking publication of this interview proved tragic. Unaware of Hindenburg's direct testimony of Germany's military defeat, Germans adopted the Dolchstoss or "stab-in-the-back" theory that Germany had only lost the war because it was betrayed at home by "the socialists, the Communists and the Jews," which served as Nazism's explanation for Germany's defeat. "If the Hindenburg interview had been passed by Pershing's censors at the time, it would have been headlined in every country civilized enough to have newspapers and undoubtedly would have made an impression on millions of people and became an important page in history," wrote Seldes. "I believe it would have destroyed the main planks on which Hitler rose to power, it would have prevented World War II, the greatest and worst war in all history, and it would have changed the future of all mankind."^[6][7]

Seldes claimed that the Battle of Saint-Mihiel never happened. In his account, General Pershing planned to capture the city, but on September 1 the Germans decided to remove their forces from Saint-Mihiel to reinforce other positions. Seldes claimed no shots were fired as the first Americans, he among them, entered the city on September 13 to be greeted as liberators before General Pershing, Pétain, and other high-ranking officers arrived. The thousands of German prisoners captured, he wrote, were taken as they mistakenly arrived at the train station days later to relieve the German troops that had left days earlier.^[14]

Lenin and Mussolini[link]

Seldes spent the next ten years as an international reporter for the Chicago Tribune. He interviewed Lenin in 1922. He and three other reporters were expelled in 1923 when Soviet authorities, who routinely censored foreign reporters' telegraphed dispatches, found articles by the four reporters, disguised as personal letters, being smuggled out in a diplomatic mailpouch to avoid censorship. The expulsion was facilitated, according to Seldes, after his publisher, Colonel Robert McCormick, failed to show sufficient respect when writing to the Soviets to protest censorship.^[8]

The Chicago Tribune sent him to Italy where he wrote about Benito Mussolini and the rise of fascism. Seldes investigated the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, the head of the parliamentary section of the Italian United Socialist Party. His article implicated Mussolini in the killing, and Seldes was expelled from Italy.^[9] He wrote an account of Italian censorship and intimidation of American reporters for Harper's Magazine.^[15]

In 1927, the Chicago Tribune sent Seldes to Mexico, but his articles criticizing American corporations for their use of that country's mineral rights were not well received. Seldes returned to Europe, but found that his work increasingly censored to fit the political views of the newspaper's owner, Robert R. McCormick.

Freelance[link]

Disillusioned, Seldes left the Tribune and went to work as a freelance writer. In his first two books, You Can't Print That! (1929) and Can These Things Be! (1931), Seldes included material that he had not been allowed to publish in the Tribune. His next book, World Panorama (1933), was a narrative history of the interbellum period. In 1932 he married Helen Larkin Wiesman (later Seldes), who died in the late 1970s.^[5]

In 1934, Seldes published a history of the Roman Catholic Church, The Vatican. This was followed by an exposé of the global arms industry, Iron, Blood and Profits (1934) and an account of Benito Mussolini, Sawdust Caesar (1935).

Two books on the newspaper business established his enduring reputation as a critic of the press: Freedom of the Press (1935) and Lords of the Press (1938).^[5] He took the title of the latter from a speech by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes: "Our ancestors did not fight for the right of a few Lords of the Press to have almost exclusive control of and censorship over the dissemination of news and ideas."^[16] He believed "that advertisers were a far greater threat to journalistic freedom than government censorship."^[3] The press and news, he wrote, "are coming more and more under the domination of a handful of corporate publishers who may print such news as they wish to print and omit such news as they do not wish to print."^[16] Time was initially positive in its response: "A rambling but effective attack on U. S. newspapers, charging coloring, distortion or suppression of vital news, containing some enlightening instances of journalistic malpractices as George Seldes encountered them during his career as correspondent."^[17] Later, Time called him a muckraker, meaning a biased and crusading critic, when it called another writer's work "refreshingly fair and accurate (especially in comparison with muckraking books like George Seldes' Lords of the Press)."^[18] Seldes told of his pursuit of a tobacco study that he would make public years later, though the author of the study denied his account and claimed his work had been widely cited in the press.^[19][20]

He also reported on the Spanish Civil War on a freelance basis for three years and later said that American reporters too readily accepted what the Franco side wanted them to believe.^[5]

On his return to the United States in 1940, Seldes published Witch Hunt, an account of the persecution of people with left-wing political views in America, and The Catholic Crisis, which sought to demonstrate the close relationship between the Catholic Church and fascist organizations in Europe. When Time reviewed the latter, it noted several of Seldes' works and said he "stuck out his tongue at Benito Mussolini... thumbed his nose at U. S. journalism...and uttered some hoarse Bronx cheers at the Roman Catholic Church." The review complained that his detailed accounts of church activities were "in part damaging" but "not all germane to the subject."^[21]

[edit] In Fact

From 1940 to 1950, Seldes published a political newsletter, In Fact, "a four-page weekly compendium of news other newspapers wouldn't print."^[3] Washington Post editor and later press critic Ben Bagdikian said, "When Seldes was no longer printed by the mainstream press, he was an important conduit to the journalistic community, who knew that there were flaws in the system, but often couldn't get printed in their own newspapers, because the press cannot be a watchdog on itself. So they fed stories critical of the press to Seldes." At the height of its popularity it had a circulation of 176,000.

One of the first articles published in the newsletter concerned the dangers of cigarette smoking.^[5] Seldes later explained that at the time, "The tobacco stories were suppressed by every major newspaper. For ten years we pounded on tobacco as being one of the only legal poisons you could buy in America." At a time when tobacco companies were major advertisers, Seldes discussed the contents of a study called, "Tobacco Smoking and Longevity", which he said had been suppressed since 1939.^[3] Throughout the 10-year run of In fact, Seldes published more than 50 stories on the health effects of tobacco, and the cigarette industry's attempts and suppressing such news.

Among the favorite targets of In Fact was the National Association of Manufacturers.^[5] Defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who subscribed to In Fact while an undergrad at Harvard, said, "I heard about the National Association of Manufacturers first from Seldes and more from Seldes than I ever heard again. If you were to read the mainstream press, you'd hardly become aware that such organizations existed, that businessmen worked together to pursue their own interests." In fact also attacked Charles Lindbergh for his Nazi sympathies, the American Legion for helping to break strikes,^[3] and labeled many captains of industry as "native fascists." Consumer advocate Ralph Nader said, "[Seldes] used the word fascism to reflect an authoritarian state of mind that tended to stifle free speech and dissent and also tended to believe that might was right."^{[citation needed]}

In Fact immediately attracted the attention of government authorities. President Roosevelt ordered an FBI investigation of Seldes and In Fact in 1940.^[22] Articles claiming that the FBI was infiltrating unions and monitoring union activities resulted in FBI surveillance of Seldes and his publication. J. Edgar Hoover sent Seldes a 15-page letter denying such FBI activities.^[23] The FBI subsequently questioned In Fact subscribers, particularly servicemen and -women, and had US postal officials reporting to the FBI on Seldes' mail correspondence. In Fact lost many of its subscribers in the late 1940s. Seldes later claimed that his critical coverage of Yugoslavia got the publication banned from Communist Party bookstores. The political climate discouraged subscriptions on the part of less ideologically committed readers as well.^[24] In Fact ceased publication in 1950. I. F. Stone's Weekly, which started publication in 1953, took In Fact as its model.^[3]

In addition to writing his newsletter, Seldes continued to publish books. These included Facts and Fascism (1943) and One Thousand Americans (1947), an account of the people who controlled America. Time called One Thousand Americans "a collection of truths, half-truths and untruths about the U.S. press and industry."^[25] One Thousand Americans introduced a wide audience to the conspiracy theory known as the Business Plot, a supposed plan of America's corporate elite to overthrow the U.S. government in the early 1930s.^[26]

Seldes published The People Don't Know on the origins of the Cold War in 1949.

Critical reception[link]

Seldes had both staunch admirers and strong critics. Some of Seldes' contemporaries and later historians have judged much of his work harshly. One critic thought I.F. Stone "was light years beyond Seldes."^[27] Others cited his political bias and preconceptions. A study of the Dies Committee said that Seldes' account in Witch Hunt suffered from his view that everything the Committee did was wrong.^[28] Another warned that The Catholic Crisis "should be read with great caution in view of the author's latent anti-Catholic and pro-Communist bias."^[29] Another cited Seldes as a writer with "an agenda."^[30] Still another evaluated Iron, Blood, and Profits as "less sober" than other works on the subject of international arms dealing.^[31] Of his biography of Mussolini, another wrote: "many of his sources were unreliable and his book was almost devoid of logical order."^[32] A more appreciative estimate said that Freedom of the Press was "one-sided, but well deserves careful reading."^[33]

Summing up Seldes' work, another wrote that "until 1947 [Seldes] followed the Stalinist line so closely that any author must use him with the utmost care."^[34]

A. J. Liebling said on him, "George Seldes [is] about as subtle as a house falling in. He makes too much of the failure of newspapers to print exactly what George Seldes would have printed if he were the managing editor. But he is a useful citizen. In fact is a fine little gadfly, representing an enormous effort for one man and his wife.".

But a whole generation of journalists and activists were influenced greatly by Seldes. Long-time Washington Post columnist Colman McCarthy said, "He was a reporter who didn't worry about being objective. He worried about what he would choose to write. I'm always amused when they call somebody 'one-sided'. Seldes offered one side – the side you weren't getting elsewhere".^[2] Nader said of Seldes, "He was like a doctor. He reported about diesease in the political economy, and the gross inequities of power, and the abuses and the exploitation. I always wanted to be a crusading lawyer, and he gave me some materials to contemplate crusading about."^{[citation needed]} Journalist Nat Hentoff said, "He took what should be the most honorable term in journalism - muckraking - and made it work again. A lot of journalists of his generation and the generation or two that followed, did more, took risks, because [Seldes] was the model. And the fact that he was there made them feel like whores if they didn't do more."^{[citation needed]}

Politics and later career[link]

It has been alleged that Seldes had been a member of the Communist Party since well before 1940, valued for his "major connections" in Washington.^[35][36]

Seldes later wrote that In Fact was founded at the instigation of the U.S. Communist Party leadership, but he claimed that the Party worked through his partner Bruce Minton (also known as Richard Bransten) without his knowledge. Seldes wrote that he was unaware that Minton was a Party member who borrowed the funds to start In Fact from Communist Party leader Earl Browder.^[ab][37] When Joseph McCarthy investigated his ties to the Party in the 1950s, Seldes vehemently denied Communist Party membership.^[38]

Seldes published Tell the Truth and Run in 1953, but otherwise found it difficult to publish his work for a decade.

He developed an anthology called The Great Quotations and received rejections from 20 publishers. It sold more than a million copies when it appeared in 1961.^[3]

In a letter to Time magazine in 1974, he appraised the state of American as much improved in his lifetime:^[39]

The press deserved the attacks and criticisms of Will Irwin (1910) and Upton Sinclair (1920) and the muckrakers who followed, and it needs today the watchdog and gadfly activities of the new critical weeklies, but all in all it is now a better medium of mass information.... The 1972 Watergate disclosures, it is true, were made by only a score of the members of the mass media, but I remember Teapot Dome when only one of our 1,750 dailies (the Albuquerque Morning Journal) dared to tell the truth about White House corruption. We have come a long way since.

He published Never Tire of Protesting in 1968 and Even the Gods Can't Change History in 1976.

The Association for Education in Journalism gave him an award for professional excellence in 1980.^[5] In 1981 he received the George Polk Award for his life's work.^[10]

He published his autobiography, Witness to a Century in 1987. He wrote: "And so [my brother] Gilbert and I, brought up without a formal religion, remained throughout our lifetimes just what Father was, freethinkers. And, likewise, doubters and dissenters and perhaps Utopians. Father's rule had been 'Question everything, take nothing for granted,' and I never outlived it, and I would suggest it be made the motto of a world journalists' association."

In 1981, Seldes appeared in Warren Beatty's Reds, a film about the life of journalist John Reed. Seldes appears as one of the film's "witnesses" commenting on the historical events depicted in the film.^[40]

Seldes served on the board of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).^[11]