Mathew Wiley mentions this Arab News op-ed complaining about journalistic bias. Interesting points:

The other day Fox News, a quasi-governmental American channel...

I think we can begin to see where this going. Fox is, of course, private, not governmentally-owned. I could understand wanting to say they were biased towards the US gov't point of view, but to say "quasi-governmental" is to do the truth, and one's readers, quite a disservice.

We continue in our dedication to "truth":

Not a single journalist of Fox News, Sky TV, CNN and the BBC ever questioned the legitimacy of the war when the Anglo-American forces failed to recover weapons of mass destruction.

This author clearly lives on a different planet than mine. I saw many press briefings, some even relayed by the "quasi-governmental" Fox News, in which reporters incessantly asked: "What about the WMD?" One reporter, confused about the difference between a question and a speech, put it something like this:

This might be the first war in which the cause hasn't been discovered before the war has ended.

WMD questions were so incessant that recently reporters have stopped bothering to phrase them to Rumsfeld. I saw one get up and say something to the effect of: "Well, I'm asking the daily WMD question" -- almost like the joke where prisioners call out jokes by number rather than bother to tell them again.

Interestingly, I suspect the following is a true story (implications aside):

One thing common among Western correspondents was their rigid attachment to their preconceived notions. Most of them tried to bend the facts to fit their hypotheses.

One such example during that period was a press conference by Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation. The conference was held at King Abdul Aziz Air Base just a few days before the bombardment of Iraq. The Joint Information Bureau had set up a press pool consisting of journalists from newspapers and the electronic media. I was also included in that pool. Michael Gordon asked Prince Sultan: "Will you allow Allied forces to hit Iraq from Saudi soil?" Adel Al-Jubair, the then adviser to the Saudi Ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar, and currently special adviser to Crown Prince Abdullah, was the interpreter. Prince Sultan very clearly said: "Saudi Arabia will not take any unilateral decision but will act only after consulting all the partners in the coalition." It was a very clear statement.

But when the pool sat down to write the story, Michael Gordon, insisted that the lead of the story should be that Saudi Arabia refused to allow an attack on Iraq from its soil. He was reminded of the exact words used by Prince Sultan. The tape was played umpteen times but he insisted.

Eventually the story was written with the lead suggested by Gordon, and it was on the creed as well as on news channels. There are so many similar incidents which showed the preconceived notions of the Western media and their total disregard for hard facts.

I can believe this story. Not because it fits my own suspicions (which it does), but because I trust the author heard his own ruler's words, in Arabic, quite correctly, and because I remember that story.

Of course the bias portrayed here is not the kind the author alleges in the rest of the article: It shows a bias to demonstrate that "the world" is against the Bush administration, evidence to the contrary. Strangely, the duplicity these particular journalists allegedly employed in their own anti-American crusade is then used for the same end result, but by alleging they are pro-American. Very, very twisty.

And consider this stunning expose of bias:

The same approach was evident during the present war "Saddam is a bad guy; Bush and Blair are the good guys"

Yes, of course. They forgot to present the "other side" -- that it was also possible that Tony Blair was evil incarnate and that Saddam was, in fact, the good guy. Where was that angle in the war coverage?? Answer: The same place "gravity pulls things up" is in science coverage.

The continuous showing of Iraqis celebrating their "new-found freedom" will certainly have an effect on anti-war protests, and no doubt Bush and Blair will be cast as the heroes. Who will be there to remind naive audiences that the two are also responsible for the killing and agony of thousands of innocent Iraqis?

Err, that coverage continues because the event continues. (I find quotes around "new-found" very interesting -- do we imply they've had it all along?) And the "casting as a hero" is being done by Iraqis. Who will be responsible for reminding us that this war killed "thousands" of innocent Iraqis? I'll answer after you tell me how much time you have spent reminding your readers over the last 12 years that Saddam has killed millions.