Reporting the “Unvarnished" Truth: The Origins and Transformation of Undercover Investigative Journalism in Nineteenth Century New York

Abstract

This thesis charts the origins and historical conditions that gave rise to undercover investigative journalism in 1850s New York, as well as those that contributed to its decline in the early 1890s. While scholars typically view this now ubiquitous journalistic practice as a late nineteenth century phenomenon, it in fact emerged much earlier in response to social and demographic shifts resulting from increased industrialisation. The practice saw reporters from New York newspapers adopt physical disguises and engage in forms of “passing” to surreptitiously obtain first-hand, and purportedly more objective, evidence for readers concerning topics centred on the increasingly anonymous metropolis. Closely analysing six undercover investigations from New York newspapers, this thesis examines how the practice of undercover investigative journalism shifted in focus and scope from the late antebellum period until the early Progressive Era, when social reformers began adopting similar practices for reform purposes, while their presence in newspapers declined. Instead of interpreting this shift in terms of a teleological progression, as other scholars have done, Reporting the “Unvarnished Truth” historicises undercover newspaper investigations within their own context, revealing journalistic assumptions about “objectivity” and the way newspapers positioned themselves as arbiters to diagnose and alleviate urban ills. It also demonstrates the way undercover investigations made uniquely palpable latent concerns about class, gender, and the rise of corporate capitalism.