Muckraking: The Mayor v. the Magazine

For reasons that seem to be rooted in the public mood, muckraking is a cyclic form of journalism. If a society is troubled, it suspects that something is wrong with its system or its leaders; a free press responds by finding out what that something is. Hence the recent exposes of the Mafia, Senator Dodd, slaughterhouses, Abe Fortas, American automobiles, poverty funds misuse, hot dogs, drug companies, Pentagon spending, Senator Long, Medicare profiteering, Congressman Gallagher. And last week, the charge in Look magazine that Joseph L. Alioto, the dynamic and popular mayor...

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