muckraker

Meaning

1. (US) One who investigates and exposes issues of corruption that often violate widely held values; e.g. one who exposes political corruption or the poor conditions in prisons.
2. (US, historical) One of a group of American investigative reporters, novelists and critics of the Progressive Era (the 1890s to the 1920s).
3. (British, derogatory) A sensationalist, scandalmongering journalist, one who is not driven by any social principles.

Synonyms

mudslinger

busybody

snoop

tattler

whistleblower

Translations

fouille-merde

Muckraker

Schmierfink

scrutor

denunciador de escândalos

tafaner

muckraker

xafarder

Etymology

From muck + raker. Believed to have been coined following a 1906 speech by United States President Theodore Roosevelt, in which he likened the investigative journalist to ‘the Man with the Muck-rake’, a character in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress.