Man bites dog
Aphorism in journalism / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the film, see Man Bites Dog (film). For other uses, see Man Bites Dog (disambiguation).
The phrase man bites dog is a shortened version of an aphorism in journalism that describes how an unusual, infrequent event (such as a man biting a dog) is more likely to be reported as news than an ordinary, everyday occurrence with similar consequences, such as a dog biting a man.
The phenomenon is also described in the journalistic saying, "You never read about a plane that did not crash."[1] It can be expressed mathematically; a basic principle of information theory is that reports of unusual events provide more information than those for more routine outcomes.