Muckraking was a powerful journalistic force, whose supporters made it become so. Muckraking was the practice of writers and critics exposing corrupt politicians and business practices. President Theodore Roosevelt made the term "muck-raker" popular. He once said The man with the muck-rake, the man who could look no way but downward with the muck-rake in his hands; who was offered a celestial crown for his muckrake, but who would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake himself the filth of the floor. Some, like Roosevelt viewed methods of muckrakers such as Ida Tarbell, Ray S. Baker, Lincoln Steffens, and Up