Bias in the news

I would like to respond to Julie's blog about the bias in Western media when it reports on the 'Muslim World'. I agree that there is an inherent bias when we hear, see, or most rarely read about news events that take place beyond our borders in areas that are deemed to be different from us. I would recommend that anyone interested in looking at this issue read some of Edward Said's work, especially his "Orientalism".
I must also play devil's advocate. Who has the right to claim what is bias and what is not? Do we not all maintain our own bias? For me claiming bias against/for, etc. any one group is often an exercise in futility. I think we too often become engrossed in our zeal to understand the world, we instead end up becoming a party in bias ourselves. A liberal hears news of a domestic event such as welfare reform or an international event such as Western exploitation and is immediately blinded from examining all the facts. A conservative hears about social spending or a non-western country such as Venezuela exerting power and fails in the same way to examine the facts.
I know this may not seem overly important to globalization. I feel it is though because the new inter-connectedness brings all the new opinions to light. Instead we must first examine our own bias to ensure that efforts to understand all bias, western and non-western, are somewhat objective and thoughtful. Good night.