What is the best definition of muckrakers?

A. Muckrakers were opportunistic people who traveled to the West in search of fortune.

B. Muckrakers was the name given to former farmers who were moving to cities in great numbers after the Civil War.

C. Muckrakers were journalists who sought to expose scandals in business and politics.

D. Muckrakers were enterprising people who took advantage of the poverty of Southerners after the Civil War. ar.

C. Muckrakers were journalists who sought to expose scandals in business and politics.

Explanation:

Muckraking is a term most commonly associated with the profession of journalism especially during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The writers / journalists of this time wrote about the major corruptions in the political as well as economical world.

The literal use of the word "muckrakers" was first applied by Theodore Roosevelt, based from John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" where a man was described with a muckrake in his hands, looking only downwards and nowhere else. This is symbolic for muckrakers are those workers who cleaned the muck with a rake, and are indispensable for the cleaning of the worse 'dirt'.

These journalists are then labelled or referred to be "muckrakers" in their work of exposing scandals in the business as well as the political sphere.

I'm pretty sure it's c because it is often referring to journalists.