I’ve read through several codes of journalistic ethics in the days following Ms. Foley's remarks. Having done so, I find myself largely in agreement with the reason why the modern newsroom culture discourages journalists from identifying closely with social justice and political movements: when journalists are “too close” to a story, subject, or institution, it impedes their capacity to be objective. Every code of journalistic ethics that I read (over a dozen so far) addresses this concern explicitly and exhaustively. Here are but a few examples:

Associated Press

The good newspaper is fair, accurate, honest, responsible, independent and decent. Truth is its guiding principle. It avoids practices that would conflict with the ability to report and present news in a fair, accurate and unbiased manner.

New York Times

Journalists have no place on the playing fields of politics. Staff members are entitled to vote, but they must do nothing that might raise questions about their professional neutrality or that of The Times. In particular, they may not campaign for, demonstrate for, or endorse candidates, ballot causes or efforts to enact legislation. They may not wear campaign buttons or themselves display any other insignia of partisan politics. They should recognize that a bumper sticker on the family car or a campaign sign on the lawn may be misread as theirs, no matter who in their household actually placed the sticker or the sign. (p. 22)

Staff members may not march or rally in support of public causes or movements, sign ads taking a position on public issues, or lend their name to campaigns, benefit dinners or similar events if doing so might reasonably raise doubts about their ability or The Times’s ability to function as neutral observers in covering the news. (p. 23)

Hearst Newspapers
While we encourage all of our employees to be good public as well as private citizens, employees should avoid any active involvement in partisan politics. Employees should also avoid active involvement in community issues or organizations to the extent that their participation might cause the paper's objectivity to come into question.

EW Scripps

Journalists and others working in newsrooms must abide by a more restrictive standard, given the disinterested neutrality from which news organizations must work. They must not serve in elected or politically appointed positions. They must not participate in political fund-raising, political organizing, nor other activities designed to enhance a candidate, a political party or a political-interest organization. They must not make contributions of record to political campaigns nor engage in other such activity that might associate an employee's name with a political candidate or a political cause.

Knight Ridder

Knight Ridder employees, as private individuals, are free to contribute to and work for political parties, causes or candidates and to participate in debate on issues of the day. But it is very important to avoid situations that might raise a perception of bias in the context of newspapers' or other news-gathering units' responsibilities to report and comment upon such activities. This sensitivity is most obvious, of course, in the case of news and editorial employees and those with responsibility for those functions within a newspaper or other news organization.

Now we could have a very good debate about whether these espoused policies do or do not guide journalists’ actions. I am sure that both sides could offer ample evidence to support their conclusions. What I see as every bit as important is this: whereas the major newspapers are aware of the problems inherent in having reporters be too close to stories, causes, and institutions, Ms. Foley rejects that idea. In fact, she is strongly in favor of what is becoming known as activist or agenda journalism. This is underscored clearly in remarks that Ms. Foley made in an interview entitled “Journalists Can Be Fighters for Social Justice.” The interview, which took place in 2000, was with David Beacon of the Media Alliance, an organization whose mission is described thusly:

Media Alliance is a 29 year-old media resource and advocacy center for media workers, non-profit organizations, and social justice activists. Our mission is excellence, ethics, diversity, and accountability in all aspects of the media in the interests of peace, justice, and social responsibility.

Before delving into Ms. Foley’s specific remarks, here’s the preamble to the interview itself, written by Mr. Beacon:

At home, many reporters during the civil rights movement saw themselves as advocates for racial equality, while today newsroom culture discourages journalists from identifying closely with social justice movements in communities and union halls. In analyzing this shift to the right, media critics on the left generally contend that the growth of monopoly media corporations has created a political monoculture that has successfully removed the left from the spectrum of acceptable debate.

With Media Alliance's perspective made clear, keep it in mind as you read the following exchange between Beacon and Foley:

Beacon: The Guild was founded by people like Heywood Broun, who had a reputation as a very radical person.

Foley: Heywood Broun was probably the most prominent journalist of his day, in the 1920s and 30s. He had always taken up activist causes, both in print and in his life. He ran for Congress once on the Socialist ticket. That's pretty unimaginable today--that the most prominent journalist in the country would do something like that.

What's even more interesting about Broun than his running for elected office as a Socialist is what the Socialists thought of his politics. According to many biographies

In 1930 Broun ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a socialist. Three years later Broun was expelled from the Socialist Party after appearing with members of the Communist Party at a rally demanding the release of Tom Mooney and the Scottsboro Nine.

Wow! Expelled by the Socialists for meeting with the Communists and all that while making his living as a columnist. Getting booted by the Socialists didn’t hurt his career, however. In fact, shortly thereafter:

Broun helped establish the American Newspaper Guild in 1933 and was elected its first president. As well as writing for several newspapers Broun was a regular contributor to the journals, The Nation and The New Republic. Heywood Broun died in Stamford, Connecticut, on 18th December, 1939.

Now when we add to the above, this exchange in the aforementioned interview, the outlines of Ms. Foley’s agenda become clearer:

Beacon: Did Broun have in mind an organization that would defend reporters and photographers in writing and photographing what they felt was true, even when their bosses didn't like it? Did he think that the union should encourage reporters to take the same progressive attitude toward social struggle that he did?

Foley: From the beginning of the Guild, we've maintained that no one should be disciplined or fired for anything they write for publication. That was the direction in which Broun pushed.

If anything is clear from the above, it is this: the kind of journalist Ms. Foley favors are those that are active in social causes. She has every right to hold this view. I take issue only with whether people like the ones she so clearly admires ought to be called journalists or not. She would, it seems, blur the line between even ostensibly objective journalism and social activism appearing in the pages of the nation’s major newspapers. In Linda’s world, Dan Rather, Eason Jordan, and the like should never be called to account, let alone fired, for either their shoddy reporting or their unsupported and unsupportable statements. Instead, they have every right, if not the duty, to use their positions of prominence to advocate on behalf of their political beliefs, to use their positions as bully pulpits.

Is it any surprise then that every year the NewsGuild, the union founded by a Communist and now headed by Ms. Foley, gives a Heywood Broun Award , one which she says is “now probably second in prestige to the Pulitzer Prize.” So if I understand correctly, the second most prestigious award in journalism is one in honor of man that rejected the very idea that there could be any such thing as a conflict of interest. You can’t make this stuff up.

UPDATE: Earlier versions of this post and another now called "War Journalist Action Figures" appeared on my Blogger site in May 2005. I had forgotten about them until a few days agao and, upon rediscovering them, decided to edit and re-post them here. In June, Ms. Foley was re-elected president of the Newspaper Guild. Here's the first paragraph of an open letter by Ms. Foley that appeared on the Guild site shortly after her victory:

Note to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (or whatever you’re calling yourselves these days): I was just re-elected president of The Newspaper Guild-CWA, and I’m not resigning.

Pick up more on the story here, here, and here
Finally, who is it and the National Park Service that thinks that Heywood Broun's profile belongs on their website, in a series of pages devoted to Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site?
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