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A Realization About Media Bias
I've come to a realization about media bias. A claim of media bias says more about the biases of the accuser than the accused. What the accuser sees ends up being what the accuser looks for. There's enough misreporting and controversy out there to be spread around the entire political spectrum so that each side perceives bias. That's not to say it doesn't exist. If someone believes something and a media outlet consistently reports it in a manner that doesn't agree with that opinion, it is natural to think of that media outlet as reporting its biases rather than facts. Because how could anyone, with the facts available, ever portray your side in a negative light?

With that in mind, let me point out maybe the most egregious example of the media carrying water for the Republican Party. One of the greatest moral failings of the United States in the past decade was its torture policy:
From the early 1930's until the modern story broke in 2004, the newspapers that covered waterboarding almost uniformly called the practice torture or implied it was torture: The New York Times characterized it thus in 81.5% (44 of 54) of articles on the subject and The Los Angeles Times did so in 96.3% of articles (26 of 27). By contrast, from 2002-2008, the studied newspapers almost never referred to waterboarding as torture. The New York Times called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture in just 2 of 143 articles (1.4%). The Los Angeles Times did so in 4.8% of articles (3 of 63). The Wall Street Journal characterized the practice as torture in just 1 of 63 articles (1.6%). USA Today never called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture.
Combine this with the media's coverage of the run up to the Iraq War and you get an indictment against the national media for pro-conservative bias.

With things like economic policy, health care reform, and national defense I expect "working the refs" to work. To a certain extent it's all a big game. I was genuinely surprised about the lack of coverage for my second example. In May a mosque in Jacksonville, Florida was firebombed.
Authorities found remnants of a crude pipe bomb in the explosion, which occurred about 9:30 p.m. Monday at the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida on St. Johns Bluff Road.

“This was not a harmless prank,� Casey said. “We found shrapnel from the blast a hundred yards away close to [Florida] 9A.�

At the time of the blast about 60 people were inside. The firebomb caused minor damage to the building. There were no injuries.

Casey said the minor damage was primarily due to the strength of the mosque building. If anyone had been closer to the blast, they would have been injured or killed, he said.
Is there something I'm missing with this story? Has there been any coverage of this on a national level? Given the coverage surrounding the pathetic failures of the underpants bomber and the Times Square bomber, the fact that the bombing didn't kill anyone shouldn't stop the media from reporting it. In this case the bomb actually went off. The media is often accused of anti-American, pro-Muslim bias. In that is the case, where is the coverage for this story?
 
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