Call me a purist; I prefer ethics over inclinations.

Civic journalism equates to tossing over values, no matter how you dress it up.

When Fred Fiske invited me to contribute to this commemorative issue of The Masthead, he suggested I comment on the future vitality and usefulness of the editorial voice in American newspapers.

I have never been much of a futurist myself or had much faith in the predictions of professional futurists. Look at how much trouble the Tofflers created for poor Newt Gingrich.

But I am willing to suggest that the editorial page of the future will be a pretty sorry sight if we listen to those who want us to toss over the intellectual and ethical values so painstakingly developed in our profession over the past 50 years. That is pretty much what the evangels of civic journalism are proposing, no matter how they gussy up their sermons.

I realize that in making this assertion I demonstrate the "striking" cultural conservatism attributed to traditional journalists by Jay Rosen in his book Getting the Connections Right.

My view is that if we get the facts and the ideas right, the people, acting through the democratic process, will take care of the connections - and also choose those they want to do the connecting. But civic journalism gets around this old-fashioned view of civics by asserting that the process described above has broken down so badly that journalists have no choice but to throw away our old values, adopt a political agenda, and rescue society from its current epidemic of misunderstanding and bad feelings.

Rosen does not have much use for those of us who cling to the old-fashioned role of observers and analysts. His sympathies lie with journalists who are "wondering if they can't do more to help make democracy work." Skepticism is bad, in Rosen's book; the promoting of community dialogue is good.

Beyond that, he gets pretty vague about exactly what kinds of professional principles will be adopted once we abandon our traditional ways of reporting and commenting. "Indeed, public journalism is at times an elusive thing," he concedes, "more of an inclination than a set of techniques or a clear code of conduct."

Journalism is not a way of feeling

I am definitely a journalistic conservative when it comes to preferring ethics and principles over inclinations. Journalism in general and editorial writing in particular is not a way of feeling. It is an intellectual process based on the gathering, synthesizing, and recapitulation of facts and, in the case of the editorialists, drawing value judgments based on that process.

A good editorial page always has room for the praise of worthy programs and individuals. But we would be foolish to swallow whole all the civic-journalism professors' warnings about the dangers of cynicism. The subtext is that we should be cheerleaders instead of critics; such an approach may produce good town hall meetings and more relaxed politicians.

But in the end it also produces weak-kneed reporting and watery editorials that pollute the political process and hobble civic progress.

NCEW member Howell Raines is editorial page editor of The New York Times.