[Denver Ditdat]

Fox News presser verifying this.

This is totally off the subject, but I've always been interested in the evolution of the English language. I don't recall seeing press conferences referred to as "pressers" before late last year. Does anyone know the origin of this term?

[MineralMan]

"I don't recall seeing press conferences referred to as "pressers" before late last year. Does anyone know the origin of this term?"

I don't know, exactly, but I remember hearing the term from Public Relations flacks at least two decades ago.

[ohioWfan]

I don't know. I just started using it when I saw it used here on FR.

Maybe someone else knows when the term "presser" started to be used?

[steelcurtain]

I don't recall seeing press conferences referred to as "pressers" before late last year. Does anyone know the origin of this term?

I don't know its origin. I'm a former newspaper reporter and never heard it used during my tenure at the paper.

[ApplegateRanch]

It is a reference to medieval torture, used up into early colonial times, of "pressing".

Strap a guy down, face up; place a weighted board on him, and periodically add more weighted, until you squeezed or "pressed" the desired information out of him.

Akin to what reporters do at a press press conference---apply pressure, until they have squeezed out all the information they want.

It is no coincidence that the Press is called that, nor that early printing presses could double as torture instruments.