Dog bites news

MAN bites dog. It is news.

How about dog bites cat?

Is big news, I just learnt by way of Daily Echo, the leading – and only – newspaper in my little town in south England.

Hogging its front page today was a remarkable piece of journalism. Crux of story: three dogs kill a cat.

Or rather, Dogs savage cat to death. The strapline read: ‘It could be a child next time’ [sic] says mum.

In the last 12 months a child was killed, another two severely mauled by dogs in England, so this is newsworthy. But a Page 1 splash?

I better save a copy of this edition.

PS: I am not a fussy man, so I won’t pick on the missing comma in the strapline, nor the passive photograph, nor its caption that features a man identified simply as ‘Barry Richardson’ (he doesn’t figure anywhere in the story). Hell, I won’t even pick on the fact the strapline parrots the same direct quote as the intro – nor that one of the quotes has been doctored.

PPS: Not entirely in passing, here is some all-round biting for you: Man bites dog (and policeman)