The Trouble with Man Bites Dog Stories

 

One of the reasons that stories about how dangerous Trump is are not getting any attention is that he was President once, after all, nothing disastrous happened (not counting 2020, but everyone seems willing to give him a pass on that and say it was not his fault).  So it can be hard to convince people that this time will be different.

The other reason is basically that our news media see Trump's worst antics as a dog bites man story. Everyone knows that Trump is a vindictive lunatic, so announcing that is not news.  Of course, everyone knows that Biden is old and that Hillary sent State Department e-mails on a private server, and somehow that managed to get regular coverage.

But OK, Trump is crazy is old news, it is dog-bites-man, whereas the latest criticism of Biden can be portrayed as man-bites-dog.

And I understand why the news prefers to focus on man-bites-dog stories.  They are rare and exciting.  But if all you get in the news is man-bites-dog and never dog-bites-man, it can give people a distorted idea of what is going on in the world.  It can make people fear to let their dogs out in the yard or take them walking because of all those crazed dog-biting men out there.

And it can make people lose their healthy fear of vicious dogs. After all, who ever heard about a dog biting a man?