Liberalism as the Norm or 'Default' Position

Mary Mapes is incredulous when during the investigation she is asked if she is liberal. She thinks the question is irrelevant. She sees herself as a journalist (in this case a producer) who is pursuing a story.

It seems she and her defenders view liberalism as the "norm" for their profession. The outsider or what some philosophers refer to "the other" is a conservative or "right-winger" or some left-wing, anti-capitalist radical.

If someone who makes an allegation against Obama, Hillary, Bernie Sanders, or any other liberal Democratic figure or politician and reporters discover that the accuser is "conservative," then his or her politics become relevant. The accusation could be false (or just a waste of time to investigate) because the accuser just wants discedit a political opponent.

The same principle could be operating in the reverse, i.e. liberal out to get a Republican figure or officeholder. Like conservatives, liberals (or progressives) can do bad things and be blinded by their obsession with politics.

In my view and ideally, if a media entity just wants "to report the news" and conduct more "weighty" things such as investigative journalism, it should employ a relatively equal number of liberals and conservatives so they could check each other's natural bias and recommend story ideas that the other would never think of or just dismiss as a waste of resources.