Reform Dog Bites Media Man

The British press is failing in its duty to ask the right questions of Nigel Farage

Laughing all the way to the ballot box: Nigel Farage addressing journalists at a press conference in Westminster

'Man bites dog’ was once a popular aphorism in print journalism. Believed to have originally been coined by the Edwardian newspaper magnate Viscount Rothermere, it refers to the idea that a story is only truly newsworthy if it is completely unexpected.

So when a dog bites a man, that is something so commonplace as to not be really worth reporting on, but when a man bites a dog, then that is really worth putting down on the page.

Looking at the newspapers this week, amid the seemingly endless coverage of the pronouncements of Nigel Farage, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this is a principle that has been largely forgotten by the ranks of the British press.