The news is served, sir

We joke about glasses being seen as half-full or half-empty. I have a joke with a colleague each morning about how our 'great' newspapers in Australia - The Australian and The Age will report the main news of the day. The slant in headlining is invariably consistent.

The Australian: Bush in Warning to Rudd on Troops

GEORGE W. Bush has challenged Kevin Rudd's policy on Iraq, issuing a warning about the dangers of troop withdrawal and rejecting the Opposition Leader's different positions on Australian military deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The US President, who will meet Mr Rudd formally for the first time on Thursday in a one-on-one meeting in Sydney, stressed he hoped Australia's commitment to Iraq would not change in the event Labor won the looming federal election.

"I'm going to remind him that, one, the stakes in Iraq are very high for peace," Mr Bush said in an interview with The Weekend Australian and other Asia-Pacific news outlets before next week's APEC summit in Sydney. "Iraqi-style democracy in the heart of the Middle East is part of winning this ideological struggle. And I'll remind him that, as far as I'm concerned, that leaving Iraq before the job is done will cause an enemy that attacked us before to become emboldened."

The Age: Rudd rebuffs Bush on Iraq

OPPOSITION Leader Kevin Rudd has rebuffed US President George Bush's intervention in domestic politics by refusing to bend on the ALP's commitment to pull troops out of Iraq.

... Mr Rudd replied that he would not be moved on Labor's policy on Iraq. "Our policy on the withdrawal of Australian combat forces from Iraq is clear-cut," he said.

OK, I am being a bit unfair, the actual stories are less partisan than the headlines but one still can worry. Are newspapers reporting the news or are they writing it?

‘The news is served, sir’.