Muckraker Essay

Investigative journalism has established that in order to keep societal values sincere to a nation and not have them corrupted by big business, the government needs to regulate business affairs. Yet, no matter the time period, muckrakers, such as Helen Hunt Jackson and Morgan Spurlock, have been able to passionately investigate and expose these issues concerning American values, in order to evoke a social reform. For Jackson, she began her writing career because of depression and loneliness. After simply attending a lecture on the mistreatment of the Ponca Indians, Jackson became devoted to changing the way the government treated them. The American Government at the time supported the Railroad companies that were kicking the Native Americans off their homes. Jackson thought this was despicable and began advocating for a change in the government relations with the Native Americans. Morgan Spurlock on the other hand, became festered with exposing the harmful effects of McDonald’s directly, after learning about a failed lawsuit attempt against them. The government protected the rights of the McDonald’s corporation in the lawsuit because they felt that the two girls had no evidence to back up their claims of the food being made so cheaply, that it was causing serious heath defects such as obesity. In his documentary “Supersize Me”, Spurlock exposes the harmful food of McDonald’s. Both Jackson and Spurlock, tackle capitalism as it tries to corrupt the American values and replace them with the values of big business. Helen Hunt Jackson exposed the corruption behind the government relations with the Native Americans and sparked a future social reform that emphasized the American value of equality. At the time, the railroads were being established and the first transcontinental railroad was just created the decade before. More and more people were travelling out west, which resulted in the removal of the Native Americans from their homes, in order to make room for