‘O Reporter Where Art Thou?

By William Ingalls '19, English, multimedia journalism and mass communication; Senior Inquiry project

We have a problem. For centuries America's democracy has been able to thrive in large part due to the strength of its free press. Liberty was maintained by leaders in the press like Edward Murrow and Walter Cronkite, journalists known and revered by the public. Nowadays, people are only familiar with anchors if any journalists at all. There's a problem with not knowing who your news comes from, and that responsibility falls on a number of people. Nowadays, news programs focus on quick hit, one minute while demanding reporters to come up with nearly one of these stories a day. Moreover, these reporters are not only being saddled by an absurd workload, but also by a particular framework on how to present stories. While these modern changes have opened up coverage as a whole and made the news more accessible due its repetition, those very things have taken much of the power and ability to produce reform from journalism and by extension journalists.

While the problem that stands before modern day America is a large one, there is indeed a solution. To solve the pitfalls of modern day journalism, one needs to look to the past and see how the forefathers of America's free press not only informed the country, but served as a watchdog to large corporations and government as a whole. A person who exemplified this type of journalism was Charles Edward Russell during the early 1900s. Looking back at the way he was given time to write and freedom to write his true thoughts on a story provide an interesting contrast to modern day journalism. Examining how time and partisan reporting was effective in the past and comparing it to the modern standard of a 24 hour news cycle and unbiased reporting shows that modern journalists could greatly benefit from the freedoms provided to past journalists like Russell.

Drawing on the past

Journalism was different 100 years ago. Part of that is due to the great strides in technology from the 20th to the 21st century which greatly expanded the mediums and speed at which news is dispensed. However, the world of journalism that Charles Edward Russell lived in and thrived in offers an interesting perspective into how journalism was produced and how it reformed the country. Throughout Russell's career, he focused on a brand of journalism referred to as muckraking which, “was direct, enthusiastic, and partisan, projected not only to inform but also to reform,” (Harding). The two elements of muckraking that offer modern day journalism the most interesting concepts in regard to reform are the time given to write stories and partisan writing that attempts to “reform rather than inform.”

One piece of Russell's groundbreaking work wasn't the content itself, but the time he was given to work on his muckraking expose, and how it was released. He originally planned on his investigation lasting around three months, but his reporting process was significantly altered due to growing pressure from the beef trust (“Confessions” 282). Part of this was due to the fact that the “The Greatest Trust in the World” was originally published in segments through Everybody's Magazine (New York Times). While this form of publication is part of the reason why Russell faced a lot of pressure from the beef trust, it had the benefit of allowing Russell to write and publish simultaneously. This allowed him to listen to the public's response and write follow up articles based off of it. Most importantly, this publication strategy allowed the newspaper to make money by releasing the report in segments which gave readers a meaningful piece of the story, but still left them yearning for the next piece of the article. The main benefit of this strategy is that it allowed Russell a total of six months to craft his muckraking report. This time was spent speaking to and vetting sources along with conducting his own research. The net result of allowing a prolific reporter like Russell to spend so much time on a subject produced staggering discoveries. Among these were how the beef trust manipulated the market so the price of cattle went down, yet the price for packaged meat when up (Russell 173). Russell furthered this evidence by showing the shockwave this type of market shift caused. It started with Chicago meat packers buying their stock form outside the Midwest which drastically altered the demand in the areas around Chicago (Miraldi 291) The end result of this tactic not only hit farmers hard by costing them $8 per cattle (which would be worth over $200 today when adjusting for inflation), but this also ruined the banks who were lending out the land. Between 1901 and 1904, Iowa lost $12.5 million alone which caused 40 banks to foreclose and seven officers from those banks to commit suicide (Miraldi 291). This evidence lead to a full government investigation which Russell's employers allowed him to cover. Keep in mind that Russell is getting paid for the continued coverage of a story that might prove to be nothing. Imagine paying one of the country's best journalists to stay on a story when he could be sent anywhere else. However Russell's continued reporting revealed that the government official was quickly bought off by the beef trust (Miraldi 295). The end result of Russell's reporting and eventual testimony in court lead to the beef trust being convicted of two charges and eventually crumbling altogether (Miraldi 296). The success of this report was largely do to the generous amount of time that Russell was given to write the story. The deadline wasn't a date, it was when the story was well researched and written. However, the success of Russell's work and muckraking in general is also due in large part to partisan reporting.

Partisan reporting is different than slanting political bias or what is seen in an editorial section. These two types of journalism have a predetermined slant before any reporting is actually performed. Russell on the other hand recalled, “It is not my business here to be an advocate,” before he even began his work in Chicago (Miraldi 277). This is an important qualifier because Russell isn't approaching the story with a planned way to tell the story. He wants the facts to allow him to tell the story. As he began to uncover the evidence detailed above, it became abundantly clear to Russell that it was his obligation to write on the behalf of consumers and farmers whose lives were being overturned by the beef trust trying to bolster their bottom line. The purpose which Russell writes makes it clear what's at stake for the people affected by the beef trust:

Three times a day this power comes to the table of every household in America, rich or poor, great or small, known or unknown: [the beef trust] comes there and exports its tribute. It comes to the ocean and makes its presence felt in multitudes of homes that would not know how to give it a name. It controls process and regulates traffic in a thousand markets. It changes conditions and builds up and pulls down industries: it makes men poor and rich as it will; it controls or establishes or obliterates vast enterprises across the civilized circuit. Its lightest word affects men on the plains of Argentina or the by-streets of London. (Russell 2).

Russell also shows his ability to go after people on behalf of the consumers he's defending when critiquing both a reporter who is defending the beef trust (Mr Roberts), and the corrupt government official who was supposed to investigate the beef trust (Mr Garfield).

Thus Mr Garfield having caused everyone familiar with the subject to shriek with laughter by asserting that the packers' profits were merely trifling, Mr Roberts, [a] good, faithful man, proceeds with the utmost solemnity and without a particle of proof, to parrot that statement. It is time to have done, once and for all with this nonsense. I suppose the human mind was never occupied with a feebler conceit (Russell 249).

Understandably, these may sound a bit sensational on first glance, but each of these quotes have a distinct purpose in the way they're written. One is to fully detail the gravity of what the beef trust can do, and the other is to call out corrupt people for trying to defend the beef trust after being bought out. Russell even calls attention to this later on in his intro by saying, “I am quite well aware that my words may seem extravagant to the generality of readers; to those who know the the history and actual operations of the American Beef Trust they will appear an understatement of galling and humiliating truths” (Russell 5). Russell invoked this kind of voice because if he couldn't convince himself that this issue was important, how could he convince his readers it was important. In addition to Russell's own voice, it's important to note that he all but leaves out the voice of the beef trust. While this would be unacceptable on the basis of unbiased reporting trying to give everyone a voice, Russell is using his power as a journalist to give a voice to the voiceless. Though some may critique him for not offering his opponents in the piece much of a voice, he would essentially be undoing his efforts to speak for consumers if he offered the beef trust an equal voice. The beef trust had the power to make its voice heard at any time it wanted to. The consumers and farmers who could barely afford to feed their family due to the beef trust's monopoly over food in the area? Not so much. The ability for reporters invoke partisan reporting is its style lends itself to more powerful language and change which Russell's example shows. It's the very reason this essay begins with making bold claims that news and by extension democracy is in danger due to the industry's current practices. It lays the issue at hand clearly without pulling punches which is exactly how Russell seized the public's attention throughout his career.

The story of Russell researching and writing “The Greatest Trust in the World” only accounts for six months of a news career that spans decades, but those six months not only captured what muckraking journalism is, but how it can impact modern day journalism for the better. Now that there is a clear picture of the how muckraking working in the vacuum of the 20th century, it's time to see how the elements of time and partisan reporting have fallen by the wayside in recent decades.

Time is ticking

Time factors into the current field of reporting in two majors ways: the distribution of news, and the workload journalists are placed under as a result. As mentioned earlier, Russell's work on the beef trust was originally published in segments through a magazine before being released as a complete work. While the concept is novel and was widely acceptable, people don't consume news that way anymore. Audiences don't want to consume investigative stories like they would their favorite weekly TV drama where they get a fulfilling episode that leaves them with a cliffhanger which beckons them back next week. They want the whole work, and they want it available all at once.

Aside from being able to publish in segments, Russell was also afforded an exorbitant amount of time in comparison to today's news cycle. He received over a month to sift through previous fillings, vet interviews, and write his report. Luxury in today's journalism would be days not weeks. The concept of being able to focus solely on one report would prove absolutely laughable to modern day journalists who were born and raised in a 24 hour news cycle. In a world where clicks dominate the majority of advertising dollars, it's all about producing new content. Even when modern investigative stories are successful, the overall distance between their publications aren't enough to produce the needed ad revenue; For news outlets to survive, they must maintain a daily content cycle to stay relevant. In other words, the expected level of turnover in modern day news makes the steady creation of long form content like investigative stories hard to support. Of course, modern day travel and communication would have greatly expedited Russell's 6 month process, but modern time constraints wouldn't have allowed Russell to research and vet sources like he did over time for “The Greatest Trust in the World.”

Time spills right into handling deadlines and workload for reporters. A task every producer and editor have to ask themself on a daily basis is which stories get told and which stories do not. Even when the stories are narrowed down, now their air time is up for debate. Which content deserves the coveted 90 second spot and which ones become mere 45 second hits? It's a constant struggle within the newsroom to utilize every reporter to gather daily content while also pushing them to research and create their larger in depth stories at the same time. Aside from all of this, the prospect of breaking news has the ability to throw days and even weeks completely off schedule depending on the scale of the incident. Even when reporters aren't faced with the prospect of breaking news or a daily assignment, there's still a considerable time crunch to be considered.

Another struggle that Russell didn't have to deal with was dividing his attention between his investigative work and other day to day stories. This is another thing that the vast majority of modern day journalists simply wouldn't understand. In addition to finding sources, performing research, and writing the story, modern day journalists have to balance this with producing daily content and covering breaking news. If this sounds like a lot for singular reporters to handle, that's because it's true. Much of this is due to the drastic drop in employment within the news industry. Since 2007, nearly a quarter of jobs in journalism have been lost (Grieco), and that doesn't even account for specific investigative teams. Though numbers for employment in the early 1900s are hard to find, the threat of unemployment was significantly lower since papers and magazines were still the only medium for news at the time.

It's one thing for a particular department in the newsroom to be understaffed like sports or editorial. This creates a time crunch in the sense that there's a lot of one thing for a reporter to cover, but it's still in the same beat/genre of reporting. However, with the significant staff cuts in newsrooms, reporters no longer specialize in one thing, they are forced to spread themselves out into multiple beats with investigative reporting being no exception. Of the 75% of newsrooms that say they do investigative reporting, only 25% of newsrooms employ a full time investigative team (Just). For those employees in the 50% percent of news organizations that attempt to field investigative reports without a dedicated investigative team are now expected to fulfill their original jobs and deadlines along with setting up and writing larger investigative reports. The drop in staff has made it a necessity that newsrooms squeeze the most out of their reporters as they fight tooth and nail for dwindling advertising money throughout the industry. Imagine Russell not only needing to cover the Chicago beef trust, but also cover a robbery that happened in Wrigleyville, and produce a story about a new bakery opening up on Lake Michigan. The turnover in news today already pushes investigative reports enough, but expecting journalists to not only work faster but produce more work is counterintuitive when trying to produce journalism that is “direct, enthusiastic, and partisan, projected not only to inform but also to reform,” (Harding).

Lastly, the other major pillar of muckraking journalism is at least somewhat dependent on time. As mentioned earlier, Russell was given ample time to research and gather sources when writing “The Greatest Trust in the World.” Providing Russell with this time allowed him to truly reflect and decide what story needed to be told. He had the option to just report the awful statistics, catch some eyeballs from the front section on the newspaper, and move on with his career. Instead, Russell examined his research and sources and realized he needed tell his story on behalf of the consumer. This type of thought process doesn't occur unless there's enough time afforded to the journalist to truly find which story needs to be told. As the next section will show, daily coverage without a pointed edge offers next to nothing even with a story that has lasting stakes.

Picking sides

When it comes to recent history, no news story could have benefited from more partisan reporting than the issue of climate change. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger specifically recalled how “highly regulated or ‘impartial' organizations (the BBC, for instance) struggled to reflect the weight of scientific agreement while also airing the existence of critical views” (349). Rusbridger also recalls that “even in the best papers— [climate change] rarely found its way onto the front page or leading a TV news bulletin” (Rusbringer 349). Not only did climate change not receive the dedicated coverage that was detailed earlier in the time section, but in the limited coverage it did receive, the content was watered down by airing both sides of the argument as though they were equal. This is exactly the issue which partisan reporting can solve. If a journalist was given the proper time and resources to go out and truly case out a story of this magnitude, he or she would have clearly found that the vast majority of scientists had data which proved that climate change was a threat. However, as Russell showed in his partisan reporting, telling the truth isn't enough. The ideal story on this issue wouldn't just back climate change being real, it would detest outlets which aired reports from unqualified sources. Instead, journalism faltered under the weight of an unbiased standard and as a result, the next generation will have to deal with massive ramifications to “health, security, resources, migration, food, economics, and disease” (Rusbringer 349). 

While partisan reporting was notably absent from reporting the issue of climate change, modern day newsrooms deal with a number of challenges and consequences when it comes to the subject of partisan and investigative reporting. Instead of threatening single reporters like the beef trust attempted to do with muckrakers like Russell, large corporations now buy their security through advertising dollars. If an investigation is launched on their company, they can threaten to pull their funding which often times would be a decisive blow for a news company (Feldstein). In a report done by Pew Research, a news company which investigated a car dealership for fraud resulted in the dealership pulling their annual sponsorship which was worth a million dollars a year (Just). What is perhaps most disturbing about this is that journalists and the companies they work for claim to not be afraid of this situation, yet “only 2 percent of stories in our local news study this year were labeled by stations themselves as investigative. And only half of those, just 1 percent, were original station-initiated investigations” (Just). Even if a news organization is investigating a corporation that doesn't provide funding, these corporations have developed a vast field of lawyers who act swiftly to shut down any potential leaks or sources that journalists could utilize. Speaking of lawyers, legal protections for journalists have also eroded since the Valerie Plame case in 2003 which stemmed from a journalist leaking classified information about Plame's employment in the secret service (Feldstein). The government believed that there was a leak within the White House so the journalist was hounded to give up his source. Even though no one was charged for the leak itself, the case rolled back protections so that journalists now essentially have the choice to rot in jail, or reveal their source and not be trusted by sources again— essentially ending their career. Additionally, this lack of protection for journalists could also have a major impact on sources. If sources know that speaking about a story will either put themselves or the journalist in jail, why speak at all? (Feldstein). The source will either have to worry and wait while the journalist is imprisoned, or the be imprisoned and charged if the journalist speaks out about his or her source.

Clarifying critiques

To this point, much of this essay has been very critical of both the 24 hour news cycle and unbiased reporting. To be clear, both of these qualities are extremely valuable in modern day reporting. The 24 hour news cycle has lead to immediate and impactful reporting on things like natural disasters and school shootings—both things that are hard to watch, but are significantly less effective when told after the fact. The calls for relief during Hurricane Katrina and the calls for gun control following the Sandy Hook school shooting were do in large part to the lasting images provided by the 24 hours news cycle. Additionally, unbiased reporting has also served an important role in journalism throughout the last few decades. While Russell made a strategic move to only give a voice to the voiceless consumers in his report on the beef trust, this was a rare instance where voiding out the other side of an argument was necessary to guarantee the focus stayed on the consumer. In the vast majority of unbiased reporting, both sides are deserving of an equal say. This is especially true during election season or when lawsuits are brought up across the city. These stories naturally set up two equal sides that both deserved to have their voices heard whether it's both politicians being asked about their views or asking both the plaintiff and defendant why they belief they're innocent/guilty. Both of these qualities within modern day news are vital to journalism as a whole. In fact, following these principles might be the rule rather than the exception, but the major problem comes when these methods are exclusively followed. When certain types of reporting are enforced as a rule, it takes away from the world changing power journalism it, but more importantly, it takes power from the one doing the world changing, the journalist.

Bringing it back to the reporter

So far through this paper, the ideas of time and partisan reporting have been talked about on a macro level. As the title of the essay suggests, a solution to this problem stems from empowering the person responsible for gathering news, the reporter. While the majority of this essay critiques news organizations, the people with the power to change the current state of news in America are journalists themselves. Unfortunately, the current state of news leaves journalists with far too many tasks and not enough time to complete in their normal workload, let alone with the added stress of investigative reports as many news stations try to swing. When these investigative stories are conducted, they are often toned in order to maintain the ideals of unbiased reporting. These two conditions have essentially handicapped the very people who need the most agency in news as they are the sole people responsible when it comes to gathering news. If America is going to see a return to form of its free press, reporters must not only receive more time to properly cover a story, they must be given the freedom to write the story they feel needs to be told, even if that story favors one side over another.

Works cited

Feldstein, Mark, “The Challenges and Opportunities of 21st Century Muckraking.” Nieman Reports, vol. 63, no. 2, Summer 2009, pp. 50–53. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=43349961&site=ehost-live.

Grieco, Elizabeth. “Newsroom Jobs Fell 23% from 2008 to 2017, Mainly in Newspapers.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 30 July 2018

Harding, Christopher. “Popular Justice and the Regulation of Trade: Muckraking, Rough Music, Political Cartoons and the Vilification of Entrepreneurial Heroes.” Law & Humanities, vol. 12, no. 2, Nov. 2018, pp. 204–228. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/17521483.2018.1514950.

Rusbridger, Alan. BREAKING NEWS: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now. PICADOR, 2019.

Russell, Charles Edward. The Greatest Trust in the World. Ridgeway-Thayer Co, 1905.

Wormald, Benjamin, and Benjamin Wormald. “Investigative Journalism Despite the Odds.” Pew Research Center's Journalism Project, Pew Research Center's Journalism Project, 29 Aug. 2013.