ABSTRACT
Von Hoffman is one in a growing corps of activist-advocacy journalists who usually write for the conventional press but who, he says, "cut through the crap and write about reality." Their work is opinionated and they admit it. Other more singleminded advocacy journalists write for publications dedicated to a cause: women's liberation, ecology and new life styles, the Jesus movement. Those who try to experiment with the journalistic form, arguing that their own biases should be injected into the news, have horrified those who regard "objective news," the attempt at separating fact and opinion, as the crowning achievement of American journalism. For years journalists have believed that a reporter could not be a participant and maintain the detachment essential to the observer. The new participant-observer style is exemplified by Norman Mailer, probably its most celebrated practitioner, Gloria Steinem, and Jack Newfield. But other, less famous journalists have also become involved in politics.
