What is liberal?

Some of you readers haven't even gotten to this sentence, due to the markedly obvious title of this column. Some of you have read to here, but you read wondering what kind of liberal propaganda I'm about to pour onto this page.\nInstead, I have a question: What is a liberal? For that matter, what is a conservative? \nThe IDS, as a media outlet, is often assumed to be just another mouthpiece for the "liberal media" and its agenda, whatever that agenda might be. The criticism comes in many forms, from angry letters in our Jordan River Forum to angry phone calls to angry letters that people took the time to write out on paper and send through the mail.\nDoes that mean anger is a prerequisite to conservativism? If I came to that conclusion, I would be discounting the hundreds or thousands of conservatives who aren't angry about something all the time.\nThe blanket liberalism label is also just as flawed. Without naming names, there are self-described conservatives on our staff and, in fact, in positions of power. Doing a quick search for the words "George Bush" on the www.idsnews.com Web site, 128 hits come up. Considering that the IDS is a college-centered newspaper that publishes only five days a week for 30 weeks a year, 128 mentions for anyone is a pretty good number. In the time that George Bush has been in office, IU has lost multiple fraternities, the body of Jill Behrman has been recovered and more than one student has been featured in an adult film or Web site; and those people didn't get as much mention in our pages. A search for "Behrman" yielded only 109 results.\nThe Bush news wasn't all bad, either. Much of the news came from Associated Press reports, but even our local coverage to election reactions had pretty innocuous headlines, such as "Students react to Bush re-election."\nIf that is a partisan headline, blame Merriam and Webster, not us. \nExploring further, I found that Iraq news tends to dominate our Nation/World pages and even makes it to our front page every now and then. In fact, one of our better front-page centerpieces was a recent feature on the Iraqi elections. You might remember the picture: an Iraqi woman holding up a peace sign, her finger stained purple from the ink used to count and verify voters.\nIn the larger media picture, most mainstream media outlets are owned or operated by big business interests, which have traditionally aligned themselves with conservative political candidates. However, those companies, and the people who run them, often donate money to both major political parties. The broadcasting industry was among the biggest donors to both the Clinton and Bush presidential campaigns.\nThe consolidation of so much money and power in so few hands is an issue in itself, but hopefully you see my point.\nOur assistant opinion editor, Janet Hamilton, is relatively new. This is her first job at the IDS, and she's been working hard to run a quality opinion page along with her main editor, Elisha Sauers. Though Hamilton hasn't been around very long, she pointed out something to me that sometimes seasoned veterans can miss in the daily deluge of angry reader mail.\n"People who are angry are motivated to write more," she said.\nHamilton, our esteemed rookie, has a point. Can any of us citizens think back to the last time we took a moment to send a note of encouragement to someone -- a note that wasn't pre-empted by a favor of some sort?\nGive it a try. Your fingers will move faster across the keyboard, I guarantee it.