Linda Foley
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Linda Foley is president of the Newspaper Guild and vice-president of the Communications Workers of America.
She was a reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader in Lexington, Kentucky before turning to full time work at the Guild in 1984. She was elected its secretary-treasurer in 1993 and its president in 1995.
Ms. Foley drew criticism after May 13, 2005 for stating that the U.S. military is responsible for journalists being targeted - "not just being targeted verbally or, ah, politically. They are also being targeted for real, um, in places like Iraq. What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there's not more outrage about the number, and the brutality and the cavalier nature of the US military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq. I think it's just a scandal. They target and kill journalists from other countries, particularly Arab countries like Al Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios with impunity." [1]
On May 19, 2005, in an article appearing in the newspaper industry trade publication Editor and Publisher, Foley is said to have claimed that her words were taken out of context, that her intent was to discuss the scapegoating of journalists. "This was almost an aside," she said. "But it is true that hundreds of journalists are killed around the world, and many have been killed in Iraq." [2]
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 45 journalists and 20 media support workers have been killed while covering the war in Iraq.
