Muckraker

Lucy Cunningham-Schultz has covered quite a few stories since she became a reporter for her school newspaper, the Odyssey Owl, and now she wants a bigger one. Her editor has asked her to write about a company that people have complained about, for a new consumer help column, so Lucy visits Dale Jacobs, the editor of the Odyssey Times, and asks to look through his files. Dale tells her that what she is about to become is a muckraker - a newspaper word for someone who exposes wrongdoing in business or politics, from the old idea that a reporter has to rake through the muck to reach the truth. Digging through a folder of clippings from around the state, Lucy finds one about the Calvin Bloom Company over in Connellsville, which the government pursued for putting Green Dye No. 94 in a shampoo called AccuGel.

John Whittaker explains what the dye was: a chemical that turned plain white shampoo a fresh, minty green, until it began causing itching, flaking and rashes on people's scalps. Two months ago the Food and Drug Administration declared it unsafe and told shampoo makers to stop using it, and the government has accused the Calvin Bloom Company of using it anyway. Lucy is ready to give up on the story as too old, until Connie Kendall mentions that she used AccuGel just last week and got a rash bad enough to send her to the doctor - where another woman was waiting with exactly the same complaint. If the dye was supposed to be gone two months ago, Lucy wonders, why is it still causing trouble now? Whit points out that she is the reporter, and perhaps she should check into it.

Checking into it is harder than it sounds. Dr. Bloomberg keeps taking Lucy's temperature and blood pressure while she tries to ask questions, and he will not blame the shampoo for anything, since rashes have many causes and he would need to see far more cases before drawing a line between them. He will not give out his other patient's name either, though he agrees to pass along Lucy's request. At the Calvin Bloom Company, Jim Norton of public relations laughs at the idea of being interviewed by a girl from a school paper, then answers her anyway: the government's ruling came after the company had already shipped a great many bottles, they stopped as fast as they could, and a few newspapers were simply hot for a story that did not exist. When Lucy hints that she knows of recent cases but cannot name them, he asks whether she is basing her article on facts or making it up as she goes along.

Then Marjorie Sadler comes looking for her. Marjorie is doubtful about talking to a child, but she has worked at the Calvin Bloom Company until just last week, and she says her story is far bigger than one measly rash. She promises Lucy a scoop, and Lucy takes it.

The article that runs in the Owl is full of hard accusations, and it paints Marjorie as a victim who was hurt by the company and then fired for complaining. Reading it over, Whit can tell that Lucy was after the company rather than after the truth, and when Connie reluctantly gives up the mystery woman's name, Dale groans. Marjorie Sadler turns up at his office nearly every week with a fresh complaint against somebody; two weeks ago it was Nazis putting drugs in the city water to make everyone move to Germany. The newsroom calls her the crank lady.

Jim Norton calls Lucy in again, and this time he tells her a story of his own, off the record. Marjorie Sadler is a former employee because she cheated on her time cards, twice ignoring warnings; the company chose not to sue and simply asked her to leave, and he has the proof in his filing cabinet. She came to Lucy to get even, and through Lucy she succeeded. The Owl will print a retraction, but nobody can measure the damage already done, because readers who pick up a bottle of AccuGel may now hesitate, not because the company did anything wrong but because of what a reporter wrote. When Lucy telephones Marjorie afterward, hoping for an explanation, she gets a rant about a shampoo company of Nazis brainwashing everyone into goose-stepping robots, and quietly says goodbye.

Lucy writes her retraction and reads it aloud, calling her article an error in fact and in judgment. She is hard on herself - she believed Marjorie, and worse, she wanted to believe her, because she was so determined to write something that would make people take her seriously that she never checked all the facts. Whit tells her it took real courage to write those words, and that he is proud of her, and that the greater lesson is one he hopes she keeps for life: the power of the written word. Spoken words drift past and are forgotten, but words set down on a page stay alive, whether they were written two weeks ago or two thousand years ago, as the Bible has shown. Books, letters, diaries, notes, articles, even scribbles can reach a person again and again. Lucy will be a better reporter for this, Whit says, and a more responsible writer - a lesson everybody needs to learn.