<P> The term muckraker was used in the Progressive Era to characterize reform - minded American journalists who attacked established institutions and leaders as corrupt . They typically had large audiences in some popular magazines . In the US, the modern term is investigative journalism--it has different and more pejorative connotations in British English--and investigative journalists in the USA today are often informally called' muckrakers' . </P> <P> The muckrakers played a highly visible role during the Progressive Era period, 1890s--1920s . Muckraking magazines--notably McClure's of the publisher S.S. McClure--took on corporate monopolies and political machines while trying to raise public awareness and anger at urban poverty, unsafe working conditions, prostitution, and child labor . </P>

The term muckraker has been used to describe authors whose writing deal mainly with
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