Boy bites pit bull to stop attack. Loses tooth.

I hate pit bulls!
New York Sun editor John B. Bogart: "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."[1]

Boy, 11, bites pit bull to fend off attack
He sinks his teeth into the dog's neck with such force that he loses a tooth
[link to www.msnbc.msn.com]

SAO PAULO, Brazil - An 11-year old boy is in Brazil's media spotlight after sinking his teeth into the neck of a dog that attacked him.

Local newspapers reported on Thursday that Gabriel Almeida was playing in his uncle's backyard in the city of Belo Horizonte when a pit bull named Tita lunged at him and bit him in the left arm.

Almeida grabbed the dog by the neck and bit back — biting so hard that he lost a canine tooth.

The phrase Man bites dog and the related phrase Dog bites man are used to describe a phenomenon in journalism, in which an unusual, infrequent event is more likely to be reported as news than an ordinary, everyday occurrence. This can be explained by the fact that the news media generally consider an event more newsworthy if there is something unusual about it. On the other hand, a situation which is commonplace is unlikely to be taken as newsworthy. The result is that news items carrying titles such as "Man Bites Dog" occur more often than those such as "Dog Bites Man," making it seem as though the former event is more common compared to the latter than it actually is.