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Injournalism, ascoop orexclusive is an item ofnews reported by onejournalist ornews organization before others, and of exceptional originality, importance, surprise, excitement, or secrecy.
Scoops are important and likely to interest or concern many people. A scoop may be a new story, or a new aspect to an existing orbreaking news story. It may be unexpected, surprising, formerly secret, and may come from an exclusivesource. Events witnessed by many people generally cannot become scoops, (e.g., a natural disaster, or the announcement at apress conference). However, exclusive news content is not always a scoop, as it may not provide the requisite importance or excitement. A scoop may be also defined retrospectively; a story may come to be known as a scoop because of a historical change in perspective of a particular event.[further explanation needed] Due to their secret nature,scandals are a prime source of scoops (e.g., theWatergate scandal byWashington Post journalistsWoodward andBernstein).
Scoops are part of journalistic lore, and generally confer prestige on the journalist or news organization.[1]
The wordscoop is of American origin, first documented in 1874.[2] As a verb, meaning to beat someone in reporting first, it is first recorded in 1884.[3]
More generally, a scoop is the first discovery or the first report of something important.
In some ofJohn le Carré's spy novels, a scoop is new information of major strategic importance, not, of course, intended for publication.[4]
A scoop in the scientific community is a report by one group before another, giving themscientific priority.[5] In science, it is often considered important to be the first to make an important discovery.[5] According to a 2025 study, scientific teams that get scooped by other teams "are less likely to publish in top journals and receive 21 percent fewer citations."[5]
The dictionary definition ofscoop at Wiktionary