The multiple ways a single person can view a news story is insane, but understandable. The upbringing of a child could affect his or her views on the world either to be like their parents or completely different. The television news stations can subtly turn anyone into a brainwashed extremist without the subject even knowing it.

No opinions are wrong; they just have little problems within the thoughts that can be seen as wrong or be based on inaccuracies. That’s where many people can get into trouble. I’ve always had trouble forming set-in-stone opinions because I listen to arguments and make sure I know where both sides are coming from.

By carefully listening, I find myself finding things good and bad about each idea and can go back and forth, until the strongest and most persuasive argument comes to me. I think that’s how it should be. We’re on Earth for a reason — nobody is really sure why. As we live it should be a person’s duty to learn as much as they should about life and come to conclusions as they go, but make them the most informed conclusions and not rush to them.

Obviously, opinions come from each individual’s thought process. That’s all well and good, but it’d be nice if people actually thought about the thoughts before widely expressing the ideas and giving them more than one source from which to draw the opinion.

Too often a person begins to express his or her thoughts and is completely off-the-wall, whether it’s leaning too far to the right or left, or facts are wrong. It’s a growing trend in America. Opinions used to be fact-based but today, for some reason, people are turning their views into gut and faith-based beliefs.

Growing up, parents pass on their views to their kids. If they’re on solid footing and have moderate ideals, then this isn’t so bad. It teaches children both sides can be right and allows them to develop their own individual thoughts.

But if a parent, even just one of the pair, has extreme views, it can push the offspring to have the opposite extremist opinions. Sometimes the parental units pass on the thoughts to children without any background knowledge or encouraging to learn more about the subjects. These people — I know quite a few — grow up to not pay attention to current events, and just try to force their ideas on people.

As a child, my family always would eat dinner while watching Tom Brokaw give us our daily news. I didn’t like it then, but looking back on it, the daily ritual helped me become a more informed person. As I grew, my mom consistently would have the 24-hour news channels on at home and NPR in the car. It was constant news, constant arguments from both sides, that made it hard for me to form solid opinions, but also, I’m sure, had a huge influence on me aspiring to be a journalist.

When it comes to opinions, being informed is the most important aspect. I don’t think any 24-hour news channel is free of bias, so it’s best to take in news from multiple sources. Fox News gets a lot of flak for being biased — at this point, sort of deservedly so with Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin having shows — but some people on every channel have their fair share of obvious opinions.

One of my favorites is Joe Scarborough, a former Republican representative from Florida, on MSNBC in the morning. He’s super moderate and points out flaws in so many opinions. In that sense, Jon Stewart and “The Daily Show” also come in handy for the news.

They’re satirical at points, but they point out the obvious bias on every news channel. Basically, if you’re going to be adamant about opinions, make sure the ideas are well-rounded and well-informed with facts from both sides.

Some people argue just to argue. Others have a point to their opinions. Don’t be one of those people who won’t budge on opinions. Be open-minded and listen to everyone else and make sure the opinion you hold is factual and something you truly believe.

But that’s just my opinion.

Pat Evans is the State News opinion writer. Reach him at evanspa7@msu.edu.