Let's be honest here. We all have our biases.

I'll admit to mine right now. I can't stand country music, political strategist Karl Rove and chemistry. So, if I decided to write a column about the Karl Rove-led plan to cut prices on chemistry books by getting country music labels to sponsor them, with promises of renaming elements after country stars (he says "chesneyium" just sounds better than "carbon"), you would probably be a bit suspicious of my motives.

In theory, all journalism is completely without bias. A reporter, whether in print, on-air or onscreen, is supposed to approach a story like a juror, without his or her mind completely made up.

In reality, though, it is impossible to be completely impartial about something, whether it's a new TV show ("I love the show, but I'm biased, because the main character's so hot!") or an Undergraduate Student Government presidential candidate ("I don't know whether he'll do a good job, but I had a class with him last year, and he seemed like a good guy"). For journalists, even deciding what exactly to report on is a judgment call -- what's more important, the death of a soldier in Iraq or the success of a new school for girls in Afghanistan?

It depends on how you look at the news.

People often speak of "liberal bias" or "conservative bias" in the media. These phrases seem more appropriate lately, given the growing success of unabashedly biased books, radio shows and news broadcasts that offer politically skewed looks at world events. Amazon.com's nonfiction top 10 sellers include: Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, by John W. Dean; Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism, by Sean Hannity; and The Official Handbook of the Right Wing Conspiracy, by Mark W. Smith. Smith promises that his book will give readers "all the ammunition you need to help win every argument against loony liberals." He's not even trying to market to anyone outside of his own political ideology.

Biased media got a booster shot last week, when the long-planned liberal Air America Radio launched in six cities. Air America Radio's on-air talents include comedians Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo, as well as rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy.

The first days' shows, available via the Internet for those of us outside of the new station's test markets, repeatedly mocked conservatives by claiming to lock Ann Coulter in the green room and calling Air America Radio a "drug free zone," a reference to Rush Limbaugh's addiction to painkillers.

With Air America Radio (not to be confused with plain old Air America, which deals in paintball gun weapon systems), the media are taking another step away from objective journalism. Since the massive, wood-paneled radio sets of yore, radio has had biased shows, like the xenophobic priest Charles E. Coughlin in the 1930s.

But stations for just liberal talk or just conservative talk make real debate virtually impossible.

No longer must hosts with opposing views sit across from one another and hash out their differences; now, they can sit in their comfortable booths and laugh at any caller whose views run contrary to their own.

Conservative and liberal hosts each say that their own audiences are smarter, better informed and more perceptive than the competition's listeners. They constantly stroke the listener's ego. They call you smart and informed because you share their opinions, so you want to listen more. After all, everyone wants to be called smart.

They give you "information" to back up the opinions you already have, without showing you the other side of the story. That other side is called stupid, and so you feel stupid for wanting to listen to it.

By shutting out other vantage points and listening only to what you agree with, you're just sticking your fingers in your ears and humming. Democracy depends on informed discourse, and the numerous biased radio programs give you anything but that discourse.

There is nothing wrong with reading a book or listening to a program put forth by someone you agree with.

Liberals: If you want, you can listen only to Air America Radio, subscribe only to Mother Jones, surf only www.moveon.org and read only Michael Moore.

Conservatives: If you want, you can listen only to Limbaugh, subscribe only to The Weekly Standard, surf only www.freerepublic.com and read only Ann Coulter.

But then, will you really be able to effectively argue with someone of opposing beliefs? After all, you need to establish common ground to conduct a fruitful debate -- and I don't consider either Moore or Coulter common ground.

We students often claim to fight indoctrination, be it conservative or liberal. But by surrounding ourselves with opinions that we already agree with, we are in fact being indoctrinated and inoculated against further learning.

So don't listen to what anyone else tells you.

Just listen to me, and make up your own mind.