Getting and using information
Scoop
A piece of important news that one reporter or outlet gets and publishes before all rivals.
A scoop is the reward for good contacts and hard digging: a significant story you break before anyone else, leaving competitors to catch up. The word carries a glamour the trade loves, though a real scoop is rarer than the front page suggests, and a story rushed out to beat rivals must still be right. Getting scooped, beaten to a story on your own patch, is the matching disgrace. The surest source of scoops is a round worked patiently until the tip-offs come to you.