As a member of the "evil sensationalizing media", I feel I should respond to this. First of all, this K-9 Magazine story is obviously slanted. Consider the source; a magazine for dog lovers. 'Nuff said. Talk about irony; a slanted article complaining about bias.
Now, let me clarify about the newspaper article this magazine is griping about.
These articles are not written by dog specialists. They are written by journalists, who may or may not know anything about dogs at all. The articles are written on a limited deadline; depending on when the incident occured, there may have been only an hour or two available to produce a story.
Here is how an article like that would be written:
-First, the journalist would contact the hospital and police department public relations officer. The journalist would confirm the attack, then review the police department's statement.
For those who have never seen a police department release, they are very straightforward. It would say something like, "At XXXX p.m., Jane Doe was attacked by the bullmastiff owned by John Doe." It would then describe the injuries Jane Doe suffered, along with details on the attack and how the authorities responded.
This is where the journalist would get words like "provoked/unprovoked", and "girls face ripped open." And I don't understand how writing that a face was ripped open is unfair in the first place. Especially if that's what really happened. But I digress.
-If possible, the journalist would try to get a statement from the PR officer. This would be followed by statement/quotes from those who may have witnessed the attack, or know the the family or the dog well.
THIS IS IMPORTANT.
These quotes are where the opinionated statements come from. Say Mrs. Jones next door said "That dog was just vicious." The journalist will write "Mrs. Jones, a neighbor, said, 'That dog was just vicious.'" This is the part that bites so many journalists in the proverbial @$$. ***The journalist did not say the dog was vicious. Mrs. Jones did.*** I cannot tell you how many times we have been accused of telling "horrible lies about people" and "making up things". When in reality, journalists are just quoting what they have been told.
Think of how many members of the general public really and truly understand dogs. Not as many as we'd like; we gripe about them on this forum on a daily basis. We get our quotes from the general public. Basically, it boils down to this. Journalists do not know everything. They are not first-hand on the scene of every news event. They depend on sources, eyewitnesses, and official reports and documents.
I wish that K-9 Magazine has posted exactly what articles were written by the local media on this dog attack. Did the newspaper truly call the dog attack vicious or unprovoked? Or did a member of the police department at the scene say that the attack was "vicious" or "unprovoked" in a quote? There is a huge difference between the two.