What’s a Muckraker? And Why Does Marketing Need More Of Us?

This episode was originally published as an essay on my blog on March 10, 2022. Read the full text transcript of "What's a Muckraker? And Why Does Marketing Need More?"

"A lot of you have been asking me..."

What's a muckraker, RKA? And why does marketing need more?

The Marketing Muckraking podcast is an experiment in bringing my essays and some of my more scandalous lives — examining what brand culture is doing to us — to life in a new way. More importantly, I wanted to make my essays more accessible.

And this podcast is also a reflection of my research and writing process — when I find a good book, I typically read it twice: once with my eyes and once with my ears. I process information differently based on how I consume it, so this is what inspired me to begin Marketing Muckraking.

As for the question, "What's a muckraker?"

I'm going to need to start with Instagram to answer that — and what the return of the chronological feed means for creators. (Spoiler: it's not all good news.)

In this episode of Marketing Muckraking, I discuss the social media business model, how Zuck & Co line their pockets with our unpaid labor, and the connection to muckrakers of the Progressive Era.

You don't have to be a journalist to be a muckraker anymore. You simply must have an eye for injustice, corruption, and exploitation — and a willingness to stir some shit to find the truth.

Sources for this show:

• Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture by William R. Leach

• Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture by Stuart Ewen

• Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market by Susan Strasser