Introduction

More than a hundred years ago, a daring Knox College graduate started a magazine that changed America. McClure’s Magazine, the brainchild of Samuel S. McClure, Class of 1886, published fearless exposés of political corruption, economic exploitation and poverty that shocked the nation, and fueled the reforms of the Progressive Era. Angry politicians—including a president—denounced McClure and his reporters as ‘muckrakers’—a name they wore with pride.

The legacy of Sam McClure and his associates—Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair—is one of the inspirations for Knox College’s Program in Journalism, established in 2001. While the program offers courses in writing, reporting, photography and graphic design, and academic courses in political communication and media sociology, the true laboratory of the Journalism Program is the small commercial and manufacturing city of 33,500 that is the college’s home, Galesburg, Illinois. Like McClure’s writers, who immersed themselves in the cities of their day, Knox journalists learn Galesburg—its politics, its economy, its crime, its entertainment, indeed everything that makes the city what it is. Covering essential meetings, interviewing city officials, riding with police officers on patrol, seeking out human stories as well as hard news, students of the Knox News Team learn the journalist’s craft by entering into the life of the city.

Thanks to the generous encouragement and cooperation of Galesburg’s news media, Knox News Team writers are also able to share their stories with the city—and see their own work in print. Since the program began, more than 70 percent of all Knox News Team stories have been published in The Register-Mail, The Paper, Compass Magazine, Progressive Women or the Zephyr.

This collection brings together a sampling of the work of Knox student journalists in the first three years of the program. Some stories began as newswriting and feature-writing assignments and were later accepted for publication; others were produced as part of local internships. Also included are samples of news photography and graphic design work, some created as class assignments and others produced directly for publication.

When students become part of the Knox News Team, they take on another role, becoming members of the city’s working press. Whether it is The Paper’s special Election Supplement or a fashion story on sneakers written for the Style section of The Register-Mail, Knox News Team stories are read by the citizens of Galesburg, who rely on them for their sense of what is going on in the city and for guidance in daily decisions. Knox student journalists learn that their stories matter. Like McClure and his associates, the Knox News Team is part of a long tradition of journalism that matters.