Will Irwin

1873-1948

"Among America's best young

     journalists and posessed at the

     same time the inclinations of a

     scholar"

     Journalist Will Irwin was born in Oneida, New York, and raised in Colorado.  A case of tuberculosis relocated him to California, where he attended Stanford University. He excelled in writing, but his wild antics nearly caused him to be expelled. 

No matter how much of a jokester Irwin may have been, his passion was always journalism. Upon graduating, Irwin worked for several publications around the San Francisco area before moving to New York City in 1904 where he worked on the “most desirable newspaper;” the Sun. One of Irwin’s most memorable works sprang from tragedy. The City That Was had been assigned to Irwin on April 18,1906, as soon as word was received that an earthquake had devastated San Francisco, a place he knew and loved. Still in New York, Irwin wrote the booklet using only his fond memories of the city as a reference.

            After leaving the Sun, Irwin tried to tackle other literary work. However, he was not content until hired by Norman Hapgood for Collier’s magazine. There, his muckraking developed and flourished.

            Collier’s was founded in 1888 by Peter Finley Collier. The magazine first gained notoriety 10 years later with its photos from the Spanish-American War in Cuba. It continued to develop groundbreaking, research-based articles. Some of these muckraking exposes included “The Great American Fraud”  (patent medicines), “The Jungle” and “Is Chicago Meat Clean?”, which resulted in Congress passing the Meat Inspection Act in 1906.

            Having previously written articles regarding the American press, Irwin was assigned to investigate newspapers for Collier’s. “The American Newspaper,” published in 1911, was a series of fourteen articles that studied the effects journalism  had on its readers, both negative and positive. Irwin reminded readers what journalism should have been: “Getting further down toward fundamentals, the American press had a kind of franchise from the American people and the American government. We had the freest press in the world. Tacitly, it was supposed to pay for this privilege by ‘guarding our liberties’--in current language, by muckraking--when the process seemed unnecessary.”

            The fifth article, “What Is News?” published on March 18,1911, attempted to define "news;" a topic which is still debatable among journalists.“News is the main thing, the vital consideration to the American newspaper; it is both an intellectual craving and a commercial need to the modern world. In popular psychology, it has come to be a crying primal want of the mind, like hunger of the body,” Irwin wrote.

            “All the News That’s Fit to Print,”  article number eight in Irwin’s series, and a tribute to the clever catch phrase used by The New York Times, discussed the ethical values involved in news reporting. Irwin described how people's actions were affected by the press: “The newspaper which has absorbed and made systematic many things that went by rule of thumb in cruder stages of society, has generally taken over this legislative power of public opinion, this executive power of gossip. We are good not only through love of God and fear of the law, not only because it pays to be good, but also because we are afraid of publicity.”

            Irwin concluded the series with “The Voice of a Generation,” where he summarized his study of the American newspaper as, “wonderfully able, wonderfully efficient, and wonderfully powerful: with real faults.” After he completed the articles, he began to write books. Propaganda and the News: Or What Makes You Think So? was one of seventeen he would go on to write.

            It should also be noted that Irwin became one of the first reporters to travel to Europe during World War I which allowed him to obtain first hand  information about the inner-workings of war. His travels and research opened up a series of great opportunities for Irwin. It inspired him to write several books including The Next War: An Appeal to Common Sense. His involvement in the war also lead him to work with Herbert Hoover’s Commission for Relief in Belgium in 1914. Hoover influenced Irwin so much so that he volunteered to write Hoover's biography.

           Irwin died on February 24, 1948. Once a troublemaker, Irwin matured, as did his passion for writing controversial pieces. He was not afraid to reveal the truth as long as it was for the benefit of the public.

References

Blanchard, Margaret A. Revolutionary Sparks: Freedom of Expression in Modern America. Nerw York: Oxford University Press, 1992, 55-58.

This book briefly describes the muckraking era of American journalism in the early twentieth century.

Filler, Louis. The Muckrakers. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976.

This book portrays the work of many famous muckrakers, including Will Irwin.

Irwin, Will. Propaganda and the News: Or, What Makes You Think So?. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,1936.

This book briefly describes how public opinion was shaped by propagandists manipulating the news.

Irwin, Will. The American Newspaper. Ames, Iowa: The Iowa State University Press, 1911, 1969.

This is a collection of articles b from Collier's Magazine with comments by Clifford F. Weigle and David G. Clark

Irwin, Will. "Shows America Would Crush German Army." The New York Times, 18 September 1922: 1-1.

This article describes France's forced armistice with Germany in the First World War.