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However, for such an extravagant claim to responsibility and authority, the daily and weekly column have fallen woefully short over the past century. Columnists traditionally use the words allotted to them as canvases on which they daub the half-formed ideas which issue from their need to beat deadlines.

The rise of the media empires of the Hearst and Pulitzer families at the end of the last century added the jingoistic tone still found in many regular opinion pieces. Today, multinational corporations have supplanted the family-owned newspaper companies and elevated the shining banner of unchecked capitalism to a position once held solely by our republic's beloved flag.

This quibbling does not get to the heart of the matter, however. After all, readers turn to the opinion page for opinions, not for a dry recitation of facts.

What seems apparent to any newspaper subscriber, however, is that what constitutes an "opinion" is strictly confined to certain intellectual boundaries.

To each his own, it appears. William Safire has cornered the market on etymology; Anthony Lewis is the righteous voice of liberal indignation; and Mike Royko continues to rely on Slats Grobnik's insights on the plight of the common man. They fill their roles admirably and step out of character only to boost circulation or revive interest in their moribund columns.

We know what to expect from our columnists and happily indulge our preconceived notions on the reassuring pap from which they feed us.

There are many excuses we can give for the astonishing monotony and lack of insight to which we subject ourselves daily. News corporations deserve blame for their emphasis on profits to the detriment of originality or innovation. The institution of the regular column shares culpability for its fundamentally flawed premise that a position can be thoroughly explored in less than a thousand words. Ultimately, however, the reader takes the blame for silently supporting the present regime and overlooking its deficiencies.

To venture criticism without proposing a model for improvement is a remarkable waste of opportunity. In George Orwell we get more than a mere model; we are treated to the personification of imaginative journalism. Known primarily for his novels that warned of the dangers of totalitarianism, Orwell was also a prominent columnist in England from the early 1940s until his death at the end of that decade. Writing in the left-leaning Tribune , Orwell displayed his command over a stunning breadth and depth of knowledge in his weekly "As I Please" columns.

Orwell was by then already famous for his courage in volunteering to fight in the Spanish Civil War while other leftist intellectuals like W.H. Auden and Stephen Spender stayed home. He reinforced that reputation with many of the positions and flights of fancy he pursued in his columns.

While upstanding in certain old-fashioned ways, Orwell made a name for himself as a writer with a keen intellect, independent of any party line or literary convention.

The political stands he made were remarkable for his time. He was the first major British Socialist to attack the hitherto untouchable Stalinist USSR and to point out the hypocrisy of "parlour Bolsheviks" in late 1930s England.

He also stood apart from the shining literary stars of the day because of his practical solidarity with the "common man." Unafraid of the lower classes, Orwell lived as a tramp during the early Depression years, mining the experience for his thoughtful Down and Out in Paris and London . His contact with the Spanish during their civil war confirmed his respect for the humanity and aspirations of workers. His genuine character shone through during his entire career, including his time at the Tribune. He even published his home phone number on one occasion for the benefit of any reader who wished to call.

Orwell's diversity of interests, combined with his political courage, was remarkable even for his time and are surely unknown in ours. Topics for his columns ranged from childhood reminiscences to ruminations on the future of the English language to the "mild thrill" he felt from "standing exactly on longitude 0." His playful pokes at quirks in the English national character balanced forceful attacks on the prejudice and ignorance exhibited by many of his countrymen.

The present journalistic climate does not make the emergence of another columnist of the Orwell stamp likely. The public has trained its mind on a select few outlets of information, forsaking the kind of fringe intellectual media that made George Orwell's essays possible. For our own good, we need to discover writers who echo Orwell's sad lament: "One should live with the stream of life, not against it."

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the April 25, 1997 issue.