At Politico, Richard Benedetto writes:
bq. Which is more newsworthy — the murder of an abortion doctor in Wichita, Kan., by an alleged anti-abortion activist or the murder of an Army recruiter and the wounding of another in Little Rock, Ark., by an alleged Muslim convert who is said to hate the U.S. military?
bq. Most people not involved in news-placement decisions would probably say they were equally newsworthy. But those in the news media actually making those decisions had a different view.
He concludes:
bq. One might conclude that news editors, the gatekeepers who choose how to play stories, are more attuned or more sympathetic to the views of the liberal left than the conservative right and make news placements accordingly.
Leave aside the question of whether liberals really care more about abortion doctors than soldiers, or whether conservatives care more about soldiers than abortion doctors. This is really a simple issue, and one that has nothing to do with liberal bias.
The reason that there is more media coverage of Tiller than Long is that Tiller is _famous_. Or infamous, depending on your point of view. The media devotes disproportionate attention to people who are well-known, or at least better known. If William Long had been, say, Stanley McChrystal, the volume of media coverage would have been greater, and perhaps equivalent to or greater than the coverage of Tiller’s murder.
The rule of thumb could be: if two people are killed, the media will pay more attention to the one who already had a Wikipedia page (by comparison).
Regardless of ideology.