A couple of readers — Joe L. and EJ Rotert — are still debating that question in a two-week Editors’ Desk posting on another topic.

Excerpts of their exchange:

Joe L: The vast majority of the potential “workforce” are journalism school graduates who - as you acknowledged - come from a left-of-center, university background who cut their teeth writing articles and op-ed pieces for perpetually indignant, leftist campus newspapers. The NFL doesn’t draft young men who studied engineering, they go for players who have played the game on a smaller scale. (That may be a bad analogy, but I think you get it.)

EJ Rotert: As for J-school graduates, I wouldn’t say most are liberal because their background includes a left-of-center, university experience. That may be part of it, but I think it’s more that the business tends to draw in liberal thinkers, especially newspaper journalism. It’s the nature of the beast, as I noted before. Personally, I was liberal before I ever attended college or J-school.

Joe L: Would it be safe to say, EJ, then that most men and women who go into journalism tend to be liberal to start with and J-school reinforces that liberalism? I think that’s what you’re saying. It’s certainly what I believe.

EJ Rotert: I wouldn’t say J-school directly reinforces incoming students’ liberalism. As I said, it’s the nature of the beast. Outside of actual events, news tends to document progressive change in society, which runs counter to the status quo. So it’s a simple derivation of news, which covers progressive change, equals liberalism. It’s just the right’s modern-day version of killing the messenger, figuratively.