The term
muckraker was used in the
Progressive Era to characterize reform-minded American journalists who wrote largely for all popular magazines. The modern term is
investigative journalism, and investigative journalists today are often informally called "muckrakers." They relied on their own reporting and often worked to expose social ills and corporate and
political corruption. Muckraking magazines–notably
McClure's of publisher
S. S. McClure–took on corporate monopolies and crooked
political machines while raising public awareness of chronic urban poverty, unsafe working conditions, and
social issues like
child labor.