It doesn't hurt from time to time to let people know where you stand and that is especially important, I think, when you write an opinion column in a newspaper.

I think it's helpful to give readers an idea of how I view the world of news, opinion and politics.

It must be obvious to even the most casual reader of this column that I am generally conservative.

I believe in lower taxes and smaller government.

I believe government spends way too much on lots of programs that are ineffective.

I think that unborn children should have rights, too.

I think there are criminals who deserve the death penalty, but until we find a way to equitably and fairly administer it, it should be abolished. I simply do not trust the government's ability to judiciously kill people. Currently, the death penalty is applied way too often to people of minority status and low-income status. And there have been far too many people on death row lately who have been found innocent with DNA evidence. We simply can't be killing innocent people.

I think the word "people" in the Second Amendment means just that. It's the same "people" mentioned in the First Amendment or the Fourth Amendment.

I think the 10th Amendment - "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people" - has been trampled.

I think the Ten Commandments on government property is neither unconstitutional nor harmful to anyone in modern society.

I guess I think these things because I am just a dumb Hoosier, unenlightened in so many ways.

I was born and raised in Plymouth. My parents were quite blue collar.

I went to Indiana State University. I served two internships at the South Bend Tribune while in college.

After college I landed at the Logansport newspaper for seven years.

I took the job here in 1988 and the rest, as they say, is history.

I really enjoy writing opinion.

I am a bit of a news junkie. I try to absorb lots of newsy stuff each week to write opinions about.

Sometimes I think people tend to misunderstand opinion writing.

This becomes evident when people complain about "bias" in opinion writing. Frankly, I don't believe there is such a thing as an "unbiased opinion." An opinion, by its very nature, is biased.

An opinion is a view or judgment formed in the mind.

A bias is a bent or tendency, an inclination of temperament, an outlook.

I believe the two are inseparable.

Unless you are able to completely empty your mind of any type of preconceived notion about a particular issue, your opinion on that issue is biased.

If you think you look better in a black sweater than a red sweater, that's an opinion. You're biased toward red sweaters.

And opinions can be wrong. You make look horrid in the black sweater and everybody knows it but you.

We all carry certain biases. We get them from parents, friends, acquaintances, preachers, teachers, books, articles, virtually anything that shapes the way we view the world.

Our editorial pages are filled with biased opinion columns and editorials. Republicans and Democrats and everybody in between routinely get skewered on those pages every day.

A good many letters to the editor are biased, too.

And you know what? There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, that's a good thing. It fosters debate and provokes thought.

But news is different.

The reporters who work on this staff carry bias into every story that they cover.

They have preconceived notions about the actions that government agencies take, about how elected officials conduct their business.

They have opinions about the level of competency of the officials themselves.

Those are all biases and there is no way to avoid them.

The problem is when reporters let those opinions and biases creep into their news stories.

That's when I think editors need to step in and eliminate the bias.

I think our reporters do a good job of keeping their biases and opinions in check when they write news stories.

When staffers come to me with concerns about this official or that board or this policy or that ordinance, I tell them to write an opinion column.

I believe that's the way it should be.

But I truly believe the national media - when reporting news - tend to let opinion seep in.

And the seepage mainly leans to the left. This is because the vast majority of the members of the national press are Democrats.

I hear pejorative language in the national media all the time. I hear Republicans routinely labeled ultraconservative, or hard right, or right wing.

And I guess the labels really wouldn't bother me that much if things were equal. I certainly wouldn't argue that somebody like Jesse Helms is ultra-conservative.

The problem is, there are no labels on the other side. There are no ultra-liberals, according to the media.

When Attorney General John Ashcroft, a Republican, says he is guided by his religion, he's labeled "religious right."

When U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat, says he is guided by his religion, he's labeled "devout" or "principled." Again, I am not talking about commentary or opinion. I am talking about labels used during newscasts.

This is one small and largely insignificant example, but there are other times when the national media attempt to sway public sentiment with their coverage of issues.

Bernard Goldberg, who worked at CBS for years, wrote a book called "Bias." In it he chronicles dozens of examples of media bias.

He recalls the homeless "crisis" during the Reagan and Bush Sr. years when networks did an average of nearly 100 stories per year on the plight of the homeless.

After Bill Clinton was elected, the number of homeless stories dropped to near zero.

Homelessness must have declined under Clinton, one would surmise.

Not so.

One measure of the growth in homelessness is the increase in the number of shelter beds over time. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, a 1997 review of research conducted over the previous decade (1987-1997) in 11 communities and four states found that shelter capacity more than doubled in nine communities and three states during that time period. In two communities and two states, shelter capacity tripled over the decade.

Homelessness rose during the Reagan and Bush years as well. It's just that the media chose to cover the story and paint the Republican administrations as insensitive to the plight of the homeless.

It's that kind of bias that I think needs a little work in the national media.

As for me, I'll keep writing my opinions and you can agree or disagree.

And remember, opinions are like, ah, noses. Everybody has one. [[In-content Ad]]