Discussion One And Two / Political Science
Cindy Harthorne
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My definition of a muckraker is a person who refuses to allow the sludge of life to quietly settle unnoticed.
Matt Drudge comes to mind when I think of the term. Drudge is not really a reporter or a journalist, and does not claim to be. Drudge is a political commentator that falls on the conservative side.
In 1998, however, it was Drudge that broke the Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinski sex scandal story on his online news aggregation site, the Drudge Report..
Drudge’s report is an example of the simple muckraking model. He discovered the story, published it, along with an accusation that Newsweek was suppressing the story that was supposed to appear in the magazine. The public picked up on the issue, leading to legal action against Clinton. Drudge wrote, “The DRUDGE REPORT has learned that reporter Michael Isikoff developed the story of his career, only to have it spiked by top NEWSWEEK suits hours before publication”, (Drudge, 1998, Par 2).
The refual of Newsweek to publish Isikoff’s story is an example of another type of muckraking, referred to as truncated muckraking. The story would not have been released at all, if left up to Newsweek, because of the risk of publishing something so potentially damaging (Graber & Dunnaway, 2015).
The other form of muckraking mentioned in out textbook is leaping impact muckraking, where officials act without a public outcry (Graber & Dunnaway, 2015).
Cindy Harthorne
Drudge, M. (1998, January 17). 23-YEAR OLD, FORMER WHITE HOUSE INTERN, SEX RELATIONSHIP WITH PRESIDENT . Retrieved November 2, 2017, from http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2002/01/17/20020117_175502_ml.htm (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Graber, D. A., & Dunnaway, J. (2015). Mass Media and American Politics (Ninth ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.
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CNN has embraced citizen journalists with it’s CNNiReport, which allows the public to participate in reporting the news as they see it unfold, as well as providing space to discuss the stories. The stories are not edited or fact-checked before they appear, which might seem risky and cutting-edge. Stories are monitored, and the good news for wanna-be reporters is that if a story sparks the interest of the powers that be at CNN, the story can graduate from CNNiReport to CNN at large.
For inspiration, CNNiReport has news or photo assignments that participants can choose to accept. Today’s photo assignment was to ‘share your photos of space and the stars’ for example (CNN, 2017).
CNNiReport seems mostly interested in photos with brief descriptions. I read a short piece about a protest that took place after Trump announced he would put an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The story referred to the program only as DACA, and described it as a program that protect undocumented youths from being deported, but did never mentioned what DACA stands for. I would not have gotten by with that in writing for my local paper. It was very brief, as well, longer than a caption, but shorter than the 400-500 words I am usually given when I write a story.
The site provides the following warning to their participants: “Please note: Breaking news situations can be unpredictable and sometimes dangerous. Do not expose yourself to a risky or potentially dangerous situation” (CNN, 2017).
Cindy Harthorne
CNN.com. (2017, November 2). CNNiReport. Retrieved November 2, 2017, from http://www.cnn.com/specials/opinions/cnnireport
