Agents of social change is a phrase once widely used by Canadian student newspapers to describe a doctrine of activist civic journalism.
CUP's leadership soon realized that being "agents of social change" meant that distanced, objective reporting was impossible.
For instance, during the 1975 October Crisis, the CUP national bureau encouraged member papers to publish the FLQ manifesto and write pro-French, anti-War Measures Act articles, because they felt these perspectives were being lost in the mainstream press.
In 1985, CUP wrote a list of "liberation organizations" that its national bureau was authorized to support, including the IRA and the PLO.
After several inconclusive debates on the subject, CUP voted to delete the "agents of social change" clause in 1991, prompting the temporary resignation of the McGill Daily and the Simon Fraser University Peak.