Bullies In Need ~ View topic - Reporting about Pit Bulls In the Media is Biased??

Joined: 10 Jul 2009 Posts: 736 Location: Toronto

I know...I found it shocking too. Rolling Eyes

What I do ACTUALLY find shocking is this article coming out Denver!!! (of all places).

http://blogs.denverpost.com/fetch/2010/07/18/the-media-takes-its-lumps-over-reporting-about-pit-bulls/

“Animal control officers across the country have told the ASPCA that when they alert the media to a dog attack, news outlets respond that they have no interest in reporting on the incident unless it involved a pit bull. A quantitative study by the National Canine Resource Council of dog-bite reportage in a four-day period proves that anti-pit bull bias in the media is more than just a theory — it’s a fact."

"I wondered about my own newspaper, The Denver Post. I checked the paper’s online story database and got 20 hits when I typed in “dog attacks” for the last five years. Of those 20 stories, eight had headlines that included the words “pit bull,” one that included “rottweiler” and the rest did not include any breed."

Though, I don't like his last line...
"So what do we do about a complaint such as Monika Courtney’s?
Two things, maybe: listen, and think."

How about three things: listen, think, and change.

Joined: 17 Jan 2008 Posts: 694 Location: Ottawa, Ontario

One other bias I notice, is that when there is a mauling by a dog, if it's by a pit bull, that is always mentioned and forms part of the headline. If it's not a pit bull, then if if the breed is mentioned at all (or if it's known at the time of writing), it's usually buried later in the story, never in the headline...

The recent case in Quebec where a dog killed a baby, the headlines used "dog" rather than mention the breed, even though it was known at the time it was a husky.

Just out of curiosity, I did an online search of CBC news, which IMO usually has pretty fair coverage on most topics. When I searched (full text not just title) for "dog attack" for 2010, I got 3 stories, and they were all breeds other than pit bulls - but that info was buried deep in the text. For "pit bull attack", I got 4 stories, but the breed was always part of the headline. Even when the dog in question was a pit mixed with another breed, the headline was "pit bull", not "pit bull mix" or "cross". And although I think the correct collective term is "pit-bull type" dogs, which could be APBT, Staffordshire BT, etc - these terms were never used...

As if to say, if it's a pit bull, then it's a PIT BULL. If it's any other breed, then it just a DOG.

Joined: 10 Jul 2009 Posts: 736 Location: Toronto

Funny you should mention that, this was posted on facebook today.

http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2010/07/27/14846076.html

Note, that it was a "dog" that attacked. There is NO mention of breed whatsoever.

Joined: 17 Jan 2008 Posts: 694 Location: Ottawa, Ontario

This article says it was a "mixed breed dog":
http://www.northernlife.ca/news/localNews/2010/07/dogbite-260710.aspx

Not newsworthy enough to include that in the headline, though.

Joined: 11 Feb 2010 Posts: 215

Joined: 11 May 2010 Posts: 110 Location: Ottawa, ON

What really gets me about stories like the Sudbury boy's is that, even though it's reported that the dog has been a menace for months and neighbours have complained, no serious action is taken until an attack or bite happens.

Honest to goodness, there is something wrong with our province when a dog that's a neighbourhood menace is still outside on a tie-out, unsupervised, and able to reach a playground. If action was taken sooner, or if the owners actually gave a you know what about responsible ownership, that boy wouldn't have had to go through so much, and the dog wouldn't be paying for it with his life.

That infamous case of the two Presas that killed Diane Whipple in San Francisco is a perfect example. The dogs had growled at people in the hallway of their apartment and nipped hard enough to break skin before, but all the owner said was 'that's interesting'. I'm not sure if police were brought in or not, but sure enough, it wasn't long before they killed somebody. And then the owner comes out with "how could we have foreseen something like this? They sleep on our bed."

Yeah, of course, I totally wouldn't expect a dog that has bitten and growled at people before to take it to the next level. What a surprise.

Joined: 17 Jan 2008 Posts: 694 Location: Ottawa, Ontario

Regarding the Whipple attack, I remember seeing some TV show years back that interviewed the owners. There a lot of allegations of various weird behavior on the part of the owners - not only did they have something against Diane Whipple because she was a lesbian, but supposedly they also encouraged their female dog to go after her and did not perform any first aid or call 911 after the attack.

Precisely the people that should not own large, powerful dogs.

Joined: 11 May 2010 Posts: 110 Location: Ottawa, ON

Also weird: the dogs had originally belonged to a guy who was in jail and trying to run a Presa breeding program from his cell. Bane and Hera's owners at the time of the attack were this guy's lawyers, who later adopted him as their son.

I agree the case was pretty fishy, but it's still heartbreaking that rarely will any action be taken until it's too late.