h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A BBC News journalist has been falling over himself today in an attempt to write the holy grail of newspaper headlines: "Man Bites Dog".

This phrase apparently derives from the old journalists' quotation ""When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news" (or something similar). The originator of the quote has been lost in newspaper folklore, but there's a Wikipedia page somewhere which lists a few claimants - without a lot of evidence.

So, here's the BBC story. A man is found dead in a convenience store in Cambridge, UK. Previous to this he had had an argument with a man in the street and had reportedly bitten the man's pet dog.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-30513026

But was this at all relevant? He hadn't died of food poisoning or anything. Dig a bit deeper and you'll find an earlier version of the story, which doesn't mention the dog incident at all, but crucially, mentions that "Three men, aged 40, 44 and 69 from Cambridge, and a 50-year-old man from Fenstanton were arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.":

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-30491611


Today's version seems to be trying so hard to write "Man Bites Dog" that it has relegated the fact that we have four bailed manslaughter suspects roaming the streets and an unexplained victim of violence.

Ireland's most prestigious papee, the Irish Times, used to have a humorous column entitled Man Bites Dog.

Papee? Is that someone a paper writes about?

Irving Berlin wrote a song about a man biting a dog. I know it's customary to post a youtube link, but I haven't found any. The song was written in the 1930s for a musical called "As Thousands Cheer," which hasn't been revived much since then.

So all I can do is give a link to the lyrics:

http://www.allthelyrics.com/lyrics/irving_berlin/man_bites_dog-lyrics-779231.html

Now that's news! Well sleuthed, paulh!

Okay, it's not the whole song, but there's a sample for you at http://www.allmusic.com/album/as-thousands-cheer-original-cast-recording-mw0000664008

Thanks.

[I have an original cast CD of the whole thing. I just wanted something I could share here.]

I suspected as much.