Pits are reported more because they've got no particular lobby to put a positive message out for them. They're the easy target.
The media at one time pointed up German shepherds as the "vicious, dangerous" breed that nobody should have--supposedly based on the 'wolf' gene in the line a hundred years ago or so. But that generalization lost its viability with tens of thousands of K-9 officers and their partners serving on a daily basis without a single problem; not to mention the other couple hundred thousand or more that are walking around in service harnesses, particularly seeing eye dogs. Police departments and city attorneys pretty much quashed the idea of the shepherd as a dangerous breed--even though according to the same flawed reports people quote on how dangerous pits are, GSD's are number 2 or 3, alternating that spot with rotties.
Cocker spaniels were "vicious" for a long time when my mom was a kid--my aunt is still very leery of them because of the stories she heard as a kid. But even as controversial a successful policitian as Richard Nixon had some effect on how the media treated his dog, and Checkers was impeccably mannered, which got cockers out of the media's sights.
Cujo put Saint Bernard's in the media's crosshairs; fortunately, Beethoven was a much more popular movie with kids than Cujo was with teens.
The biggest problem for the pit bull at this point is the Net. Because we can all access stories for all over the world in seconds now, every 'bad pit bull' story is spread like wildfire--just like the link yesterday to the story about the poor kid in Chicago who got mauled. That's a horrible, awful story, if you didn't look at it (if you didn't, don't. The owner of the dogs is an idiot, and the consequences to the kids will break your heart.) The saddest part of the story to me is that the emphasis is that PIT BULLS were the dogs in question. Less than 2 paragraphs of the 3 day story series refers at all to the fact that the owners were back yard breeding completely unscreened and untested dogs, and that the instigator dog of the pack had already been recommended to be put down. And that's unfortunately the slant of EVERY single 'dog attack' story you will read, regardless of the breed--horrible dogs doing horrible damage, with no mention at all of the...[insert exceptionally foul Marine type cursing]...who own the dogs what they did wrong--not even if the [insert cursing again] were acutal CRIMINALS, engaged in CRIMINAL ACTIVITY will you hear anything other than the 'demon pit bull' story.
It's a simple, easy story for the media to tell and it will sell papers, so to speak.
Sooner or later, the pit bull's turn to be the "demon dog" will pass, and some other large breed dog will become the demonized one. Once we have a pit bull in the Oval Office, or some big celebrity has their life saved because their pit bull dragged them out of a fire or something, pits will get a break. But it's not going to happen until after millions of innocent, well-behaved, sweet and loving pets have been tarred with this brush.
Personally, I think OWNERS should have to be licensed, rather than dogs or cats. You should have to go to animal control pet education classes about dogs, cats, rats, etc., and have to take a test, just like for a driver's license. If you can't pass the test, you shouldn't be allowed to have pets other than fish. If you want to breed or have one of the 'dangerous' breeds, you should have to get special classes of pet license, just like you have to have a motorcycle license or Class B to drive semi's, etc.
After all, the problem isn't bad animals--it's stupid, stupid people!