Do you feel you are well-informed about what is going on in the country? If you answered yes, you probably read a newspaper. And you probably watch network news. Or maybe you check out the news on a network’s website.

Suppose you do no more than that. If so, my guess is that you miss a lot of news.

That guess is based on a small trip I made recently. A trip around the media. You might like to try it. It might surprise you.

First, I read the leading story on a network news website. Big headlines regarding a big political scandal.

I switched to another network’s site. No sign of the story. Tried another network site. No story. And two more sites. No luck.

This happens all the time, for any number of reasons. The liberal networks will simply ignore stories that make conservatives drool. The conservative network (Fox) will ignore items that excite liberals.

Newspapers often do the same. Big papers like the New York Timesand Washington Post. They frequently ignore big stories. Or they shrink them and bury them on back pages. They do this when the story will embarrass their favorite political figures. Or when the story goes against a line the paper has taken on an issue.

Beyond this, the media use tricks. They skew news left or right. Let’s say a liberal candidate has a dust-up with a protester. The story in liberal media is that the candidate put the protester in his place. The story in conservative media is that the protester embarrassed the candidate.

Media people also commit fraud. Katie Couric was caught at it recently. Her people deceptively edited a video for her documentary, “Under the Gun,” to add an 8-second pause to make anti-gun-control activists look dumbstruck at her question about background checks. But in fact, they answered her question immediately. Fraud. She is hardly the first.

Lately the White House and State Department have been caught manipulating news in similar fashion.

In short, there is a whole lotta manipulation out there in media land. Many in the media try to mislead you, keep news from you, and try to distort the news before it reaches you. Many will commit outright fraud in order to push their point of view.

Now, you may not care. But maybe you do. Maybe you want to be well-informed. Especially during election campaigns. If you do, you had better check out Fox News as well as another network. (The others are mostly more liberal.)

Maybe you read newspapers and you want a more comprehensive view. Then check out the Washington Times as well as the Washington Post. Try the New York Post in addition to the New York Times.

Online, check out the Huffington Post as well as the Drudge Report. Toss in Breitbart as well. Try RealClearPolitics. It offers stories on both sides of every political issue.

With magazines, try The Week. It delivers opinions on opposite sides of issues.

Most of us have scratched our heads over this. Talking with a friend, we mention something that has been very much in the news. The friend has never heard of the item. How can this be, we wonder? After all, this has been in the news for months. The reason is that you have been watching only Fox News and he has been watching only CNN or MSNBC.

If you want to be well-informed, you will have to work at it. Watching one network’s news won’t do it. Reading one newspaper or website won’t either.

Meanwhile, if you are interested in only half of the big picture … that is pretty easy to do. Any network, any big newspaper or website will be happy to accommodate you.

From Tom…as in Morgan.

Tom Morgan writes about political, financial and other subjects from his home near Oneonta. Several upstate radio stations carry his daily commentary, Tom Morgan’s Money Talk. Contact him at tomasinmorgan.com

It has been 35 years since Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural speech as president — he one in which he said, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Over that time, hostility toward government seems only to have grown, led by politicians and embraced by millions of Americans.

I find this troubling. Not because those agencies — or the government as a whole — are faultless, but because I don’t see how a democratic society and market economy can function without an effective government.

In fact, I’d argue that limited government is more often part of the solution than it is a problem. It funds core functions — such as infrastructure, the court system, and national security — that allow the private sector to flourish. It sustains national parks, interstate highways, the air-traffic control system, and other services that make this a vibrant society. It strives to protect Americans from hazardous food and drugs, unsafe workplaces, and toxic polluters. It has played a key role in asserting fairness for minorities, women, and the most vulnerable people in our society.

This is not to say that government does not overreach, or that it always performs as it should. On occasion, its leaders make poor and misguided decisions; its legislators, however well-intentioned, create wasteful and unneeded programs.

But we’re not going to do away with government. Instead, we have to make the sometimes comfortable, sometimes uneasy co-existence of the market and the government work.

So it’s crucial for our political leaders to find the right balance. To establish in clear terms where government should and should not be active. To test what works and what does not and then pursue the former and shut down the latter. To wring duplication out of the bureaucracy and rigorously pursue efficient, effective, and accountable government. To ensure tough, fair enforcement of the law. And to recognize that their focus on policy needs to be balanced by a focus on effective management and implementation of programs.

As a politician, you can always get applause for quoting the old line, “That government is best which governs least.” But list what government does that affects people’s everyday lives, and you’ll see members of that same audience nod their heads in agreement. It’s the balance between limited government and the private sector that it’s our job constantly to assess, debate, and get right.

Lee Hamilton is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at the IU School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years, representing a district in south central Indiana.