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To “spike” a story is to eliminate it before it sees print…If you look at old photos of newsrooms from the ’30s or ’40s, you will see eyeshade-wearing men, their sleeves held up with garters, sitting at long tables. Sticking up from those tables are metal spikes. A story that was insufficient for whatever reason would be smashed atop the spike, the paper perforated and pinioned like a butterfly or the head of a traitor.
Via the Washington Post.
I never knew about the origins of this journo-word, but — now that I do — I really, really want one of those spikes for my office desk. (Put aside the fact for now that I’d inevitably injure myself somehow on it.)
