Book excerpt: Does journalism matter? Here is a book that documents an alternative journalistic tradition - one marked by depth of vision, passion for change, and remarkable bravery. In collecting the kind of reportage that all too rarely appears in this age of media triviality and corporate conglomeration, Muckraking! makes clear that American journalists have changed the country for the better. Ranging across three centuries - from the Stamp Act to the abolition movement to the Vietnam War, from the integration of baseball to Watergate - this book contains more than 125 greatest works of American Journallism. -- Cover.