Director's Blog

Everyone will recognize that phrase as Fox News' advertising slogan. I happen to think it's incredibly ironic, since Fox News is anything but fair and balanced in my opinion. To cite just one example: An October 2003 study done by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes showed that 80% of people who listed Fox News as their primary source of news believed either that U.S. forces had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or that Saddam Hussein had worked closely with the 9/11 terrorists, neither of which was true, of course. By comparison, only 23% who listed PBS or NPR as their primary news source believed one of those statements.

However, unlike Fox News, the Danbury Library tries to be fair and balanced in its nonfiction book collection, no matter how I or any of the other librarians feel personally about an author or a subject. As a result of our materials selection policy, which states that the collection "will represent diverse points of view on matters of contemporary significance," we carry titles by Fox News anchors such as Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity or similar Right-wing stars such as Ann Coulter (sorry, but Rush Limbaugh's books are out of print) despite my own personal high disregard for them. But we also carry titles by Al Franken and Keith Olbermann that represent opposing views from the Left.

So whether or not you agree with Fox's "fair and balanced" slogan, you can rest assured that in the case of our book selections, those adjectives are appropriate and true.