Seriously; in the years since the Peterson case began, thousands and thousands of people have been murdered in the U.S. Why do none of those get even a fraction of the coverage of the Peterson trial?

"Bias" already has a definition , and that isn't it. What he has defined is "dishonesty".

A "bias" is a tendency to favor one thing over another. A bias need not be a conscious behavior, and in fact is often not. For example, polls of national political reporters have shown that for the past three or four elections, roughly 90% of them voted for the Democratic candidate for President. Contrast this to the fact that only about 50% of the general population voted for the Democrat in each of those elections, and it is clear that the reporters are biased to favor Democrats over Republicans.

Many people use the word "bias" to mean intentionally unfair behavior. Although this is a form of bias, it is not what I mean when I accuse the MSM of bias. I think the word those people are often looking for is "conspiracy", which is when two or more people plan to do something, e.g. when a reporter and an editor get together and plan a story that embarrass a politician, that is a conspiracy. Not a criminal conspiracy, but a conspiracy nonetheless. The word "conspiracy" is usually used to imply the act of planning something that is not entirely honest, although it can be used merely to imply a degree of secrecy.

In the hope of forwarding the discussion of the behavior of the MSM, I offer these definitions:

• Bias: A tendency to favor one thing over the other, e.g. socialist policies over capitalist policies, Democrats over Republicans, Chinese food over Indian food. "Bias" does not imply intent. A person can be, and often is, unaware of their own biases.
• Conspiracy: Two or more people planning an activity. Collusion. "Conspiracy" implies conscious intent, and usually also implies a degree of secrecy in planning. "Conspiracy" often but not necessarily implies a degree of dishonesty in the plans being made.
• Dishonesty: In this context, publishing as fact information that is not known to be true. If Dan Rather knew the "Rathergate" documents were forgeries, but presented them as genuine, he was dishonest. If he and his producer planned together to present forged documents as genuine, they committed an act of conspiracy. If they honestly believed the documents were real, after their own experts had warned them that they could not validate them as real, then most likely their own anti-Bush biases clouded their judgment.

Looking at the definition of "bias", you can see that everyone has many biases. There is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong in the case of the MSM, as Hindrocket observes, is that they are denying their biases. I, for example, do not approve of Socialism as a social policy. I believe it is a form of slavery. I don't deny that, and it is a large part of the reason I almost always oppose the policies of the Democratic party. If I criticize the Democrats, it is usually because of my anti-socialism bias. Anyone who might hear or read me can evaluate what I have to say in that context, because I don't try to hide my bias. The majority of the MSM, on the other hand, present the image of unbiased professionals reporting on what is going on in the world. They rarely, if ever, admit that they are favoring one side of an issue over another. They deny that they are biased.

This outward appearance of lack of bias, in fact, is probably the best explanation I know of the difference between "reporting" and "commentary". Commentators admit that they are biased, and openly present their arguments to try to convince others to share their biases. Reporters pretend that they are not presenting a biased view, even as Journalism schools teach that it is not possible to be unbiased.