As someone already said, to spike a story is to hide or just ignore it.
My understanding is that waaaaay back when newspapers were the main source of fast news (i.e., before TV or the Internet), reporters would find themselves adrift in sheets and sheets of paper all over the place as they tried to pull together the pieces of a fast-moving story. So some smart person put a spike on his desk, and whenever he was done with a particular piece of paper, he’d jam it onto the spike. (I say “he” because in those days there were few female reporters.) When the spike was full of paper, an office boy making the rounds to clean up the place would take all the pieces of paper at once and throw them away.
So to “spike” a story intentionally was to put in on the throwing-away spike without dealing with it. To ignore it.
(If there are any old-timey journalists who have a better version of this story, please feel free to correct this!)
Great info
thanks
I had no idea and tried to relate it to spiking a ball but that didn’t really make sense.
I bet MSM would love to spike all the 0dumbo news.