Citizen Reporters: S.S. McClure, Ida Tarbell, and the Magazine That Rewrote America

Written by Stephanie Gorton

Narrated by Maggi-Meg Reed

A fascinating history of the rise and fall of influential Gilded Age magazine McClure’s and the two unlikely outsiders at its helm—as well as a timely, full-throated defense of investigative journalism in America.

The president of the United States made headlines around the world when he publicly attacked the press, denouncing reporters who threatened his reputation as “muckrakers” and “forces for evil.” The year was 1906, the president was Theodore Roosevelt—and the publication that provoked his fury was McClure’s magazine.

One of the most influential magazines in American history, McClure’s drew over 400,000 readers and published the groundbreaking stories that defined the Gilded Age, including the investigation of Standard Oil that toppled the Rockefeller monopoly. Driving this revolutionary publication were two improbable newcomers united by single-minded ambition. S. S. McClure was an Irish immigrant, who, despite bouts of mania, overthrew his impoverished upbringing and bent the New York media world to his will. His steadying hand and star reporter was Ida Tarbell, a woman who defied gender expectations and became a notoriously fearless journalist.

The scrappy, bold McClure's group—Tarbell, McClure, and their reporters Ray Stannard Baker and Lincoln Steffens—cemented investigative journalism’s crucial role in democracy. From reporting on labor unrest and lynching, to their exposés of municipal corruption, their reporting brought their readers face to face with a nation mired in dysfunction. They also introduced Americans to the voices of Willa Cather, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad, and many others.

Tracing McClure’s from its meteoric rise to its spectacularly swift and dramatic combustion, Citizen Reporters is a thrillingly told, deeply researched biography of a powerhouse magazine that forever changed American life. It’s also a timely case study that demonstrates the crucial importance of journalists who are unafraid to speak truth to power.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Feb 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9780062985255

Stephanie Gorton

Stephanie Gorton has written for NewYorker.com, Smithsonian.com, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Toast, The Millions, and other publications. Previously, she held editorial roles at Canongate Books, the Overlook Press, and Open Road. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh and Goucher College’s MFA program in creative nonfiction, she lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with her family. 

Reviews for Citizen Reporters

[sallylou61 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a very interesting account about Mcclure's Magazine, an early muckraking magazine, especially its beginning through the height of its power, and the people primarily responsible for it. The magazine was founded by S. S. McClure who hired Ida Tarbell and others to do the reporting and run the office. Mr. McClure paid his staff well, and the reporters often were able to investigate topics in which they were interested. However, Mr. McClure himself was a very unstable person who was difficult to work for. Moreover, he was often away from the office and then come back with impractical ideas. Miss Tarbell was older than many of the employees, and she tried to make peace among the staff. Also Miss Tarbell and John Sanford Phillips tried both to get Mr. McClure to end his affairs with women and to keep the knowledge of the affairs away from the public. Finally Mr. McClure's grandiose ideas which he insisted on maintaining caused Mr. Phillips to resign from the paper, followed by Miss Tarbell and some others on the staff, who set up a company and bought a rival magazine, which did not list. McClure's still lasted for a while, but muckraking went into decline with World War I (and the patriotism that went with it), reforms, and new media including radio. In the epilogue, Ms. Gorton tells what happened to the main characters later in life.Ms. Gorton gives the backgrounds of S. S. McClure and Ida Tarbell in alternating chapters in the first part of the book. Although their names appears in the subtitle, and they are the principal characters, several other people played important roles in the story. Since the story described different topics being research by different reporters, Mr. McClure's activities away from the office, etc., the story jumps around in time, which can be a bit confusing. However, overall, this is an excellent look at journalism (and life) at the turn of the 20th century.Highly recommended.