Schwab 1 Kyle Schwab Prof. Duertst-Lahti Media & Politics 8 November 2012 Is Fact Checking Muckraking?

In the 2012 Presidential Election, one of the most important storylines has been the rise of political fact checking in the new media. With fact checking coming from television news media, twitter feeds, and political fact checking sites like Politifact and FactCheck.org, the 2012 election has been called the most fact-checked election in United States history1. Political fact checkers claim them selves to be investigative journalists, with FactCheck.org claiming their mission is to be: a nonpartisan, nonprofit consumer advocate for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics . . . Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding. However, with the brazen disregard for fact checkers by politicians from both sides of the aisle, to what ends have the fact checkers been able to hold up to the lofty traditions of American political investigative journalism set forth by the muckrakers, and carried on by Drew Pearsons Washington Merry-Go-Round

Carr, David. "A Last Fact Check: It Didn't Work." Media Decoder Blog. New York Times, 6 Nov. 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2012. <http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/a-last-fact-check-it-didntwork/>.

and Woodward and Bernsteins Watergate reporting, and influence change on the American political system. America has a long tradition of investigative political journalism reaching back to the colonial era, in which lone publishers printed papers which listed the abuses of the British Crown and attempted to inspire American colonists to challenge British political authority. This era was highlighted by the libel trial of the printer John Peter Zenger, who accused the Governor of New York of manipulating the legal system to suit his whims. Zengers acquittal when he proved the truth of his arguments laid the foundation for the freedom of the press and set forward that freedoms main goal, to ensure that the conduct of political figures could be openly discussed and debated.2 In the time period after the end of the Revolutionary War and in the lead up to the Civil War, most investigative political journalism was done by partisan newspapers in an attempt to embarrass the opposing political party with little attention paid to evidence gathering. This focus on the opposition was due to the fact that the presses were kept afloat by lucrative government printing contracts making them essentially party propoganda arms. This hampered the scope of reporting and kept reporters from looking for abuses of power in other parts of the government.3

Moglen, Eben. "Considering Zenger: Partisan Politics and the Legal Profession in Provincial New York." Columbia Law School, 1994. Web. 08 Nov. 2012. <http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/my_pubs/zenger.html>.
3

Feldstein, Mark. "A Muckraking Model: Investigative Reporting Cycles in American History." The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 11.2 (2006): Web. 6 Nov. 2012.

This pattern began to change in the 1870s as papers started to congregate in the growing industrial areas of the east coast due to the development of cheaper printing technology and the growth of industrialized urban centers. These developments allowed the publishers to break away from party control because their lowered costs made it fiscally possible. Becoming non-partisan allowed the papers to appeal to larger groups by focusing their investigative reporting into public advocacy, which in turn helped increase their circulations. It is in this environment in which the New York Time accomplished the removal of Boss Tweed by publishing the city controllers records for Tammany Hall, proving just how much he had been skimming from the city and receiving in bribes.4 This and other investigative articles set the stage for the muckrakers of the early 1900s. The term muckraker came from a 1906 speech by President Theodore Roosevelt in which he compared the investigative journalists of the era to the fable Pilgrims Progress, in which the man with the muckrake would not look up from the filth on the floor, even when offered a shining crown. While this was not a compliment from Roosevelt, who believed these journalists only saw the bad, it was taken on by these journalists as a badge of honor.5 In this speech Roosevelt laid out the creed of the muckraker: There are in the body politic, economic and social, many and grave evils, and there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them.
4

"MORE RING VILLAINY." New York Times, 08 July 1871. Web. 08 Nov. 2012. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E00E1D8103EEE34BC4053DFB166838A669FDE>. 5 Feldstein, Mark. "A Muckraking Model: Investigative Reporting Cycles in American History." The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 11.2 (2006): Web. 6 Nov. 2012.

There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil man, whether politician or business man, every evil practice, whether in politics, business, or social life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform or in a 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.6 While Theodore Roosevelt attacked the muckraking movement, which he saw as a group of writers willing to exaggerate the truth and even outright lie to prove their points, it was crucial in pushing the progressive movement that he helped to start. Writers exposs helped alert to the public to business and governmental wrong doing that led to the 17th amendment7, the Pure Food and Drug Act8, the anti-trust proceedings brought against Standard Oil9, the development of child labor laws10, and the removal of dozens of corrupt politicians. The muckrakers set the gold standard in investigative journalism in the way they were able to expose corruption and flaws in the political system to bring about change.

Roosevelt, Theodore. "The Man with the Muck-rake." American Rhetoric. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Nov. 2012. <http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/teddyrooseveltmuckrake.htm>.
7

Graham Phillips, David. "The Treason of the Senate: Aldrich, The Head of It All." Cosmopolitan Mar. 1906: n. pag. Web. 8 Nov. 2012.
8

Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. New York: Doubleday, 1906. Print. Tarbell, Ida M. The History of the Standard Oil Company. New York: McClure, Phillips, 1904. Print. Spargo, John. The Bitter Cry of the Children. New York: Macmillan; London, Macmillan &, 1906. Print.

10

In the period starting with World War I and leading up to the late 60s and early 70s there were only a few people working in the muckraker style, primarily Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson who worked together on the Washington Posts Washington Merry-Go-Round, which exposed the corruption of Senator Dodd and so thoroughly harassed Richard Nixon that he created the infamous White House plumbers. The infamous group was originally tasked with finding his inside sources, before they were told to seek ways to have Anderson killed.11 This ended when the group was caught perpetrating the Watergate break-ins, which were covered by new muckrakers Woodward and Bernstein, whose coverage of the Watergate affair and cover up lead to the resignation of Richard Nixon, another high watermark in the history of muckraking. After this there is another large gap before muckraking begins again. While this has often been explained by saying that the muckraking was taking place because of times of great reform like the progressive movement and the Vietnam War/Watergate Era, but this does not account for a lack of muckraking in similarly reform minded eras such as the New Deal. To attempt to explain this Mark Feldstein introduces: A quasi-economic explanation of muckraking, one based on the laws of supply and demand: Investigative reporting reaches a critical mass when both its supply (stimulated by new technologies and media competition) and its demand (by an aroused public hungry for exposs in times of turmoil) is high. This explanation
11

Feldstein, Mark. "Getting the Scoop." The Washington Monthly, Jan.-Feb. 2000. Web. 09 Nov. 2012. <http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/books/2000/0001.feldstein.html>.

includes political, social, and cultural causes, since such foment increases demand for expos journalism; and it includes economic, technological, and legal causes as well, since new media outlets with greater reach and latitude boost the supply of muckraking. This broader and more inclusive explanation seems to offer a larger, overarching analysis for the twentieth-centurys two prime eras of investigative reporting.12 This model begs the question, is the resurgence of political fact checking in the modern media a return to muckraking behavior? On the supply side of the model, political fact checking seems to be at an all-time high13. With the growth of new crowd sourced media sources like twitter, candidates are being fact checked almost instantly. Fact checking websites are performing immense amounts of research, with Politifact employing 35 journalists and editors in 11 states who accounted for over 800 fact checks on the Presidential campaign alone14, and FactCheck.org and The Washington Posts

12

Feldstein, Mark. "A Muckraking Model: Investigative Reporting Cycles in American History." The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 11.2 (2006): Web. 6 Nov. 2012.
13

Carr, David. "A Last Fact Check: It Didn't Work." Media Decoder Blog. New York Times, 6 Nov. 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2012. <http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/a-last-fact-check-it-didntwork/>.
14

Adair, Bill. "The Value of Fact-checking in the 2012 Campaign." PolitiFact. Tampa Bay Times, 8 Nov. 2012. Web. 8 Nov. 2012. <http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/nov/08/value-factchecking-2012-campaign/>.

Factchecker each having at least 300 fact checks since the beginning of the year, it is clear that there is a great supply of fact checking.15 16 There also seems to be a great demand for fact checking, with The Washington Posts Factchecker pulling in over 1 million page views a month,17 FactCheck.org averaging over 800,000 daily page views, 18 and PolitiFact pulling over 1 million viewers on some days. When NPRs Audience Insight and Research Department did a recent poll of their viewership, 72% of participants indicated that they would like to receive fact checking news at least once a day.19 With such a large supply and demand for fact checking, it appears that this media climate fits Feldsteins Muckraking Model. However, in the days after the election there was a large media backlash against the fact checking movement, with many saying that it had mostly failed to affect any real change on the campaign. This is due to the way politicians have handled fact checking. They realized early on that due to the speed of the campaign, if they dont repeat

15

"FactCheck.org : Archives." FactCheck.org. Annenberg Public Policy Center, n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2012. <http://factcheck.org/archives/>.
16

Kessler, Glenn. "Archives." The Fact Checker. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2012. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/archives>.
17

Corn, David. "How to Beat the Fact-Checkers." Mother Jones, Sept.-Oct. 2012. Web. 8 Nov. 2012. <http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/factcheck-politifact-lying-politicians>.
18

"Factcheck.org Pagerank, Whois, Traffic Stats and SEO Analysis." WebWhoIsStats. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2012. <http://webwhoisstats.com/stat.php?domain=factcheck.org>.
19

Schumacher-Matos, Edward. "Election 1: Fact Checking the NPR Fact Checkers." NPR. NPR, 28 Oct. 2012. Web. 8 Nov. 2012. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2012/10/28/161839145/elections-1-factchecking-the-npr-fact-checkers>.

the lie, it will disappear in a brief period of time.20 The other more nefarious way to deal with fact checkers is turn the tables on them, and claim that they are politically motivated and biased towards the opponent. Fact checking has not hurt politicians very much, and instead they have weaponized fact checking, using it as a tool to back up their own public claims against an opponent20. After the publication of David Corns attack on fact checking, Politifacts Editor Bill Adair responded to the claims that they had not done enough to prevent politicians from lying by saying: This is a silly measurement of our work. Our mission is to inform readers, not change the behavior of politicians. And it's ridiculous to think that our new form of accountability journalism would suddenly rewrite the traditions of American politics and end decades of lying by candidates and elected officials. Besides, politicians aren't our audience. Voters are. A better measurement of our work is to ask if they were better armed with the truth so they could make smarter judgments about the candidates. This statement speaks volumes about what fact checkers believe their responsibilities are. Although they fit the model, they are not like muckrakers, who felt they had a responsibility to remove morally corrupt politicians from positions of power.

20

Corn, David. "How to Beat the Fact-Checkers." Mother Jones, Sept.-Oct. 2012. Web. 8 Nov. 2012. <http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/factcheck-politifact-lying-politicians>.

To conclude, while fact checkers do not see themselves as muckrakers, they fit the muckraking model and the public backlash against the fact checkers in the period after the election clearly indicates the public would like them to be muckrakers. If fact checkers do not have a more forceful impact on the next election, the public interest in fact checking will wane and the fact checkers will fade into obscurity.

Works Cited Adair, Bill. "The Value of Fact-checking in the 2012 Campaign." PolitiFact. Tampa Bay Times, 8 Nov. 2012. Web. 8 Nov. 2012. <http://www.politifact.com/truth-ometer/article/2012/nov/08/value-fact-checking-2012-campaign/>. Carr, David. "A Last Fact Check: It Didn't Work." Media Decoder Blog. New York Times, 6 Nov. 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2012. <http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/a-last-fact-check-it-didntwork/>. Corn, David. "How to Beat the Fact-Checkers." Mother Jones, Sept.-Oct. 2012. Web. 8 Nov. 2012. <http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/factcheck-politifactlying-politicians>. "FactCheck.org : Archives." FactCheck.org. Annenberg Public Policy Center, n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2012. <http://factcheck.org/archives/>. "Factcheck.org Pagerank, Whois, Traffic Stats and SEO Analysis." WebWhoIsStats. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2012. <http://webwhoisstats.com/stat.php?domain=factcheck.org>. Feldstein, Mark. "Getting the Scoop." The Washington Monthly, Jan.-Feb. 2000. Web. 09 Nov. 2012. <http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/books/2000/0001.feldstein.html>. Feldstein, Mark. "A Muckraking Model: Investigative Reporting Cycles in American History." The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 11.2 (2006): n. pag. Web. 6 Nov. 2012. Graham Phillips, David. "The Treason of the Senate: Aldrich, The Head of It All." Cosmopolitan Mar. 1906: n. pag. Web. 8 Nov. 2012. Kessler, Glenn. "Archives." The Fact Checker. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2012. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/archives>. Moglen, Eben. "Considering Zenger: Partisan Politics and the Legal Profession in Provincial New York." Columbia Law School, 1994. Web. 08 Nov. 2012. <http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/my_pubs/zenger.html>. "MORE RING VILLAINY." New York Times, 08 July 1871. Web. 08 Nov. 2012. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E00E1D8103EEE34BC4053D FB166838A669FDE>.

Roosevelt, Theodore. "The Man with the Muck-rake." American Rhetoric. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Nov. 2012. <http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/teddyrooseveltmuckrake.htm>. Schumacher-Matos, Edward. "Election 1: Fact Checking the NPR Fact Checkers." NPR. NPR, 28 Oct. 2012. Web. 8 Nov. 2012. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2012/10/28/161839145/elections-1-factchecking-the-npr-fact-checkers>. Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. New York: Doubleday, 1906. Print. Spargo, John. The Bitter Cry of the Children. New York: Macmillan; London, Macmillan &, 1906. Print. Tarbell, Ida M. The History of the Standard Oil Company. New York: McClure, Phillips, 1904. Print.