e, in newspapers they placed the most shocking events and kept the rural mind drooling for more. As newspaper circulation grew, the large newspaper depended much less on political parties and could now even challenge them. Newspapers played on the new human interest, the concern of the wealthy with the affairs of those below them, status-wise. This "story of the poor" became the basic outline for muckraking (Hofstadter 185-188).
This new concern of the public demanded more from reporters. Reporters had to dig up exposés and human-interest stories. However, reporters received more and more notice from the public eye. A reporter's job was becoming more and more glamorous and held the aspirations of a growing number of young. As this occurred, those of education and those of culture sought out the reporter's field (Hofstadter 189-190).
As newspapers saw a radical change, magazines observed one as well. Previous magazines received limited audiences and were run by literary men. The new magazines, emerging in 1900 were run by business promoters and reached audiences ranging from 400,000 to 1,000,000. They took a turn away from literature and began writing what greatly resembled news. These magazines, many of which by accident, began producing muckraking articles. One of the most significant of these muckraking magazines was McClure's. Others included Hampton's and Pearson's. Magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Collier's produced some muckraking articles, but were not muckraking magazines in themselves (Hofstadter 190-191).
McClure's magazine had already built a very reasonably sized circulation through popular fiction and historical representation. Ida Tarbell, the most popular reporter of the magazine, investigated Standard Oil originally as a way of h
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