Press bias is a frequent theme of my blog and one of the things I keep pointing out to folks is that bias isn't about false reporting of facts.   Instead, it's the choice of facts from the sea of available data & expert commentary that a reporter strings together into a narrative.

People's Exhibit A - MSNBC's coverage of Bush's reception at the UN this morning:

Bush U.N. speech persuades few

World leaders, Democrats deride president’s address as too little, too late

NEW YORK, Sept. 23 — President Bush came under heavy criticism both at home and abroad after he rejected a speedy transfer of power to Iraqis during his speech Tuesday at the United Nations. Bush urged other nations to share the burden in Iraq, but world leaders and nearly all his Democratic presidential rivals accused Bush of being responsible for the postwar difficulties in bypassing the United Nations to launch the war that ousted Saddam Hussein.

Exhibit B - FoxNews' coverage of the same event:

Bush Pitches Global Unity on Iraq to U.N.

UNITED NATIONS — The time has arrived for the international community to demonstrate to Iraq and Afghanistan — two countries turning toward democracy after U.S.-led military actions there — that the world is on their side, President Bush said in an address at the United Nations Tuesday.

...The United States appears to have won general consensus for assistance to Iraq, recently discovered to lack basic infrastructure after decades of dictatorial rule by Saddam Hussein and war to oust him.

It's almost like we're reading about 2 different events.  

One of the phenomena that Bias describes at length is how reporters have at their disposal a full spectrum of expert opinions and they can choose the the particular quote that best fits the narrative he's weaving.  This is where you REALLY see the difference in coverage and how subliminal biases weave forward.  The "reaction quotes" aren't the expert's, they're the reporter's.

MSNBC drops in >4 paragraphs about how Chirac and Annan retort Bush's speech.   Fox provides just under half as much of that content.   At this point, Fox is culpable in putting a Pro-Bush spin on the article.

But where MSNBC really goes overboard is providing 1-2 paragraphs each of airtime to 5 of the Democratic challengers to the president's policy.   Is this an election story?   No.  Would Bush ever get a similar opportunity to counter policy statements made by his opponents from MSNBC?  Not in a million years.  Do each of the opponents say basically the same thing just repeated 5 times?   Yep, and boy does it make the article sound like Bush fell flat on his face.   The reporter tacitly makes this chorus of reactions sound like a wide survey of opinions which happen to pass back a unanimous verdict.

By contrast, Fox doesn't really care what the democratic challengers have to say and spends the remainder of their article describing the backroom wheeling and dealing that followed the speakers within the UN -- more facts in a sense, and much less (negative) opinion-mongering.