If Fox News serves as your primary news source, find a new source.

Viewers of certain news outlets, namely Fox News, were less likely to know about the Egyptians’ government overthrow and the Syrians’ government non-overthrow than viewers, readers and listeners of other and even no other news sources, according to the Fairleigh Dickinson University Public Mind poll.

Depriving and slanting information defeats the point of a news organization.

Fox News was spotlighted a month or so ago for its partisan, conservative reporting; a chant of the Occupy protesters was “Fox News Lies.” Brave New Films released the “OutFoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism” documentary in 2004; the documentary calls out several ways Fox News tends towards conservative politics and news. Ex-Fox News supporter Edward A. Owens created the “Fox News Lies” website as some “Outfoxed” contributors created the News Hounds blog; both sites, as well as I’m sure others, serve to bring light to the news organization’s bias.

Fox News needs to change. Will they though? Doubt it. Rupert Murdoch’s strong anti-liberal views have leaked too much into his media organizations for them to turn back now. Murdoch started News Corporation. If you have never heard of it before, you have heard of the many TV stations and film companies, such as the National Geographic Channel and the Fox networks, and publishers, like HarperCollins Publishers and Wall Street Journal, it has a holding on.

I cannot accurately call everything Fox or other News Corps. organizations does as conservative; “Glee,” for example, airs on Fox. Murdoch strongly puppets what Fox News airs, taking it away from the heart of what journalism represents.

Not all media is biased. If that were the case, all media would be plainly divided into liberal news and the conservative news; pick one and go forth. In the same poll by Fairleigh Dickerson University, readers of sources such as The New York Times and USA Today and listeners to the Sunday morning news and NPR were more likely to know about Egypt’s and Syria’s governmental states than those not exposed to news coverage.

Fox News and those like it mislead as to what journalism is about. I have views; I have written this column for over a year now. I have opinions and judgments like everyone else on The Spectator staff.

Those judgments sometimes challenge our objectivity. One way we avoid that is to not be involved personally with the story. I could not have reported on the Occupy Valdosta movement if I was a protester. I could not write about any SGA meetings or CAB events if I was part of either organization.

Yes, we have messed up. Yes, we don’t always use the best judgment. No news organization does. We as reporters are trained to do the best we can to report fair and balanced news, not advocate for strictly the liberal or the conservative. It is not always easy but that is what we are supposed to do and what I will continue to do, no matter what.

So not all media lies. Not all media will get in your face or ill-inform you. Find those who don’t. I like reading the Huffington Post. The poll, as mentioned before, suggests The New York Times or USA Today. Even Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show or Steven Colbert’s The Colbert Report can serve as useful sources.

Be informed. Read about the world in some way shape or form. As long as there are readers, listeners and watchers, there will be reporters. Unfortunately though, that means good reporters as well as bad.

Use your judgment. Ultimately, it is up to you where you get your information from.

For a list of all of News Corps’ organization, visit http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/main.