Over at PoynterOnline, Distinguished Fellow Butch Ward has an article up about newsroom safety. No, it's not a warning against sticking your fingers into a spinning press.

Several years ago during a leadership seminar at Poynter, one of the participants approached me during a break.

"Can I tell you something about myself?" she asked.

"Sure," I said.

"I'm a conservative," she said as we walked past the library and the rows of books about journalism –- good, bad and ugly.

"And I'm the only one in my newsroom."

She paused, and before I could respond, added: "And none of the others know it. I wouldn't dare tell them. I'd never hear the end of it."

How about your newsroom? Would this editor feel comfortable revealing her political ideology to you and your colleagues?

So, this makes the total number of conservatives in newspaper newsrooms me, Don Surber and this anonymous woman.

Read the entire thing. Ward's right about what's wrong with pretending journalists are all unbiased and what newsrooms can do to "fix" it. He's right because I've been saying the same thing for years.

Unfortunately, if Poynter did a survey, I'm pretty sure that most conservatives -- OK, Surber, me and this woman would say "no."

I outed myself from the newsroom's conservative closet -- I was the only one in there -- when I started this blog coming up on six years ago. But I don't volunteer ways to make things more balanced -- and I'm not asked for my input, ever -- because everyone else in the newsroom is unbiased and plays everything straight down the middle of the road. Any input I would offer would tilt the balance to the right.

I'll leave it up to you to decide whether that would make the end product right-leaning or just less left-leaning.