The mainstream media have long been the whipping boy of the ideological fringes, but in recent years the right wing has taken the lead in the denunciation derby.

Although there was some criticism of how the media ignored blacks' voting complaints in Florida, by and large, media criticism from the left seldom makes much news these days. And that's odd. The left's critique that media are too devoted to the logic of the marketplace seems more in tune with the tenor of the times, given the increasing consolidation of media under fewer and fewer corporate controllers.

But instead of complaining about the narrowing range of journalistic sources, or about the relentless demand for profitable product at the expense of quality journalism, conservatives are busy whining about the "liberal media." This seems a bit out of step with reality; how could one characterize colossal media corporations like Time-Warner AOL, Viacom or even the Tribune Co., as liberal with a straight face?

Many analysts on the left ridicule this conservative fixation on media liberalism as simpleminded demagoguery. And to be sure, there is that.

But I believe that conservatives are on to something a bit more fundamental. In fact, the right is right when it condemns American journalism as liberal; liberalism and journalism have much in common, or at least they should have. The chief quality of liberalism is a skeptical attitude toward all received wisdom, be it sacred or secular. This is not driven by any particular antipathy to tradition. But rather, because all received wisdom comes with biased assumptions, and society can only evaluate those biases by examining them.

Liberals understand that one person's panacea could well be another's plague and that truth is proximate; it all depends on the context. This also is something journalists discover after listening to equally convincing partisans on various sides of an issue.

Notions of proximate truth are odious to conservatives, however, particularly those with fundamentalist religious beliefs. They condemn liberals as moral relativists who waffle on clear issues of right and wrong. They are certain and liberals are agnostic. This is also the basis of their critique of the news media. Conservatives want journalists to abandon their stance of relativity and walk in the light of moral certainty.

But in order to bring impartial scrutiny to various sides of a story, journalists must also be agnostic. Skepticism of all doctrinal claims allows journalists to probe deeply into an issue without the fear of undermining their own value system.

But it is this very freedom from dogma that makes journalists suspicious to conservative true believers. Since the pendulum has swung right in recent years, conservative media fare is also popular. Thus, the flagrantly right-leaning Fox News Channel is the fastest growing cable news station. Since high ratings spawn imitation, we're likely to see other stations offer their own versions of right-wing populism.

That would be a huge mistake. Despite its limitations, U.S. journalism still offers an opportunity to bring some clarity to the social problems that continue to cloud our country's future.

Even with the growth of corporate media, the need for a journalist vehicle to facilitate civil discourse will grow as the nation grows increasingly diverse. In that regard, the news media must reinforce its liberal sensibilities, despite market pressures to follow the current leader to the right.

In addition to that, news shops have to step up their efforts to add more diversity to their ranks, despite recent court rulings releasing television and radio stations from affirmative-action requirements. What's more, the print media must accelerate efforts resolved in 1978 by the American Society of Newspaper Editors to make the composition of newsrooms resemble the country's ethnic profile in 20 years. After failing to reach that goal, SANE simply gave itself another 20-year deadline. But growing opposition to affirmative-action programs is crippling many efforts to recruit minority candidates into media jobs.

The next time you hear some knee-jerk complaint about the liberal media, please concur. But also remind the complainer that our nation's future depends on it.

Copyright 2001 Chicago Tribune

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