The date after which I perceived a change in the coverage of Saudi Arabia in the US was September 11th, 2001, but I don't know whether the coverage changed or m

The date after which I perceived a change in the coverage of Saudi Arabia in the US was September 11th, 2001, but I don't know whether the coverage changed or my awareness of it did. Similarly, that you perceive a change in coverage may reflect not an actual change but only a change in yourself: you expect bias in coverage based on national interest and you perceive national interests to have changed, so you interpret individual articles like this to reflect a change in coverage generally. I would say it is possible, likely, that people have false impressions of the general conditions in other nations based on news organizations' choosing to cover stories that are not generally representative of conditions in the nation. This will be true for all nations, regardless of whether anyone in the organizations are choosing, consciously or unconsciously, to cover stories confirming or creating biases. I think a greater problem is our own biases and attention selecting the news coverage we attend to. I think it is not the case that bias in coverage is centrally coordinated as you imply. This is all aside from whether a particular article is true. This is something actionable. Choosing to believe or ignore individual articles based on your prior belief in bias leaves you in a hall of mirrors.