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Book and magazine publishers often follow a hypocritical convention of burying the scoop deep in the text--to signal that they're not really about anything so vulgar and transitory as news. Then they launch a publicity barrage, invariably including a press release written in traditional journalistic "pyramid style"--that is, with the scoop on top, where it belongs. ("ALBRIGHT SAYS CLINTON NEVER TOUCHED HER. In her just published memoir, Woman of the World, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright denies reports in former White House press secretary Mike McCurry's recent memoir, The Soul of Discretion, that President Clinton...") In essence the press release is the real reporting medium.
It is a bit hard to understand why this works. Why would anyone pay for a book or a magazine just for scoops you already know about from the publicity? But people do. Partly they've been suckered by the sideshow barker's trick of implying that there's more inside when there ain't. But partly there is pleasure in holding and owning something that's making news, even if it's news you already know. And journalists love producing scoops for something like the same reason. There's a thrill in being the first to report something, even if it's basically trivial, wholly artificial or soon to be universally known anyway.
Which brings up the worst thing about scoops: they come with built-in pressure to exaggerate their own importance. All scoops, even real and important ones, by their nature resist perspective. "In a development that experts say could revolutionize our thinking about toast, XYZ News has learned that..." No scoop ever begins, "In a development that may not be any big deal..." Thus what starts out as a quest for the truth often ends up just adding to the world's supply of dishonesty.