How did muckrakers influence the New Journalism movement?

The muckrakers of the early 20th century served as a vital foundation for the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s by establishing a precedent for socially committed, literary, and investigative reporting.1

While New Journalists are often noted for their stylistic innovations, they were not the first to advocate for a literary approach to contemporary events. Muckrakers such as Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, and Ray Stannard Baker believed that reporters had a moral obligation to produce true, well-crafted, and rhetorically persuasive stories. They utilized long-form magazine journalism to expose systemic corruption and social injustice, aiming to inspire empathy and action among their readers.1

This earlier generation of writers demonstrated that journalism could be both factual and deeply engaging. By prioritizing rigorous research and a compelling narrative voice, the muckrakers provided a model for later generations of reporters who sought to combine deep investigative legwork with the techniques of fiction writing to capture the complexities of real-life events.21