I enjoy reading and watching the news. It helps me know what’s going on in the world.

I don’t have great expectations, either, since I don’t expect completely unbiased news and opinions. The only thing I ask of news channels, newspapers, etc. is that they don’t try to deceive me.

That’s what bothers me about Fox News. Their slogan is “fair and balanced.”

How many liberals do you know who love Fox News? I know zero.

The only people I know that like Fox News are conservatives, and that’s fine. I just wish Fox was a little more honest with itself.

I mean, I’m not sure anyone would think of MSNBC as anything other than a beacon of liberal journalism. Heck, Chris Matthews practically became sexually aroused on air when talking about Barack Obama.

However, they don’t claim they are fair and balanced. So I appreciate that about them, even though I generally don’t agree with them.

A classic example of this phenomenon was the Tea Party demonstrations in Washington D.C. at the Capitol this past September.

As progressive media watchdog Media Matters reported, “Fox News has frequently aired segments encouraging viewers to get involved with ‘tea party’ protests across the country.”

Furthermore, Fox News went one step further. They took out a full-page fake ad in The Washington Post the following day saying that all the major networks, including CNN, missed the story.

CNN’s Rick Sanchez had enough. Sanchez, a self-admitted voter for George W. Bush, spent almost seven minutes on air dismantling Fox. As Sanchez said, “Enough is enough. And yes, I am talking to you Fox News. You, who claim to be fair and balanced! At what?”

He goes on to show CNN’s extensive coverage of the event. They had multiple reporters and multiple segments on it. Also, Sanchez pointed out that the picture of the event in the Fox News ad was actually from one of CNN’s own cameras.

Furthermore, he pointed out that Fox’s own Bill O’Reilly discussed CNN’s coverage of the event on his show. Coverage of an event that CNN supposedly didn’t cover.

Sanchez summed it up best when he said, “The bottom line is, we do cover the news. And we did extensively cover this event. We didn’t promote the event. That’s not what real news organizations are supposed to do.”

That’s the issue too, isn’t it? We want the news covered and reported on. We don’t want propaganda. That doesn’t mean I think CNN is a flawless. I don’t think any news organization is flawless or totally objective.

That is why I consult a wide variety of news sources to figure out what happened. In the past, I have consulted a wide range of sources, including the likes of Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, The Economist and Al-Jazeera.

Generally, I can get a pretty good idea of what happened during an event from those sources since they have a wide variety of perspectives and opinions. That is why I encourage people around me to look at variety of sources before drawing conclusions.

Because if you draw conclusions from faulty facts or from limited information, you could wind up looking like a fool. So don’t be fooled. Get the facts, and don’t believe anyone is fair and balanced unless they prove it.