The term muckraker refers to reform-minded journalists who wrote largely for all popular magazines and continued

a tradition of investigative journalism reporti ng; muckrakers often worked to expose social ills and corporate and political co rruption. Muckraking magazines notably McClure's of publisher S. S. McClure took on corporate monopolies and crooked political machines while raising public awarene ss of chronic urban poverty, unsafe working conditions, and social issues like c hild labor. The muckrakers are most commonly associated with the Progressive Era period of A merican history. The journalistic movement emerged in the United States after 19 00 and continued to be influential until World War I, when the movement came to an end through a combination of advertising boycotts, dirty tricks and patriotis m.[1] Before World War I, the term "muckraker" was used to refer in a general sense to a writer who investigates and publishes truthful reports to perform an auditing or watchdog function. In contemporary use, the term describes either a journali st who writes in the adversarial or alternative tradition, or a non-journalist w hose purpose in publication is to advocate reform and change.[2] Investigative j ournalists view the muckrakers as early influences and a continuation of watchdo g journalism.