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Muckrake and John Bunyan
The noun muckrake (literally, a rake for muck, i.e., manure) rose out of the dung heap and into the realm of literary metaphor in 1684. That's when John Bunyan used it in Pilgrim's Progress to represent man's preoccupation with earthly things. "The Man with the Muckrake," he wrote, "could look no way but downward." In a 1906 speech, President Teddy Roosevelt recalled Bunyan's words while railing against journalists he thought focused too much on exposing corruption in business and government.
Examples of muckrake in a Sentence
Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times, 22 June 2023
Even his longtime crush, muckraking crime reporter Iris West (Kiersey Clemons), is sympathetic to his plight.
—David Fear, Rolling Stone, 6 June 2023
The biggest scandal of all exploded in 2015 when opposition politicians and muckraking journalists questioned what had happened to billions of dollars that had disappeared from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, the country’s state investment fund.
—New York Times, 15 May 2018
Years later, muckraking journalist Jack Anderson claimed that those three squirrels hadn’t been trapped.
—John Kelly, Washington Post, 14 Apr. 2018
Mr Wolff’s muckraking skills, cattiness, cynicism and feel for human weakness, especially among the rich and famous, make him well-qualified for the job.
—The Economist, 11 Jan. 2018
It was also awarded three Pulitzer Prizes for investigative features on politics and corruption in the city, and was home to muckraking news reporters like Wayne Barrett and Tom Robbins.
—Lukas I. Alpert, WSJ, 22 Aug. 2017
Cite this Entry
“Muckrake.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/muckrake. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
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