thumb-sucker
n.— «For every inane segment on “Dateline” or plodding thumb-sucker on PBS, there is a smart, innovative documentary elsewhere.» —“From One Voice to Many, a New Golden Age of News” by Alessandra Stanley New York Times July 26, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Sigrin writes from Albany, New York, that she misheard our earlier conversation about the expression shaving yak hair meaning “performing a monotonous, tedious task.” At first she thought we said shaving gnat hair, which she figures is...
Sean in Oneonta, New York, says that when he was growing up in New Jersey, his family would pile in the car and set off on a surprise adventure, whether a short distance or long, and the kids would be told only that they were going on Buxtehude...
In 30 years in journalism, I’ve heard this term used with different shades of meaning. Most often it is used to describe an article or column that involved little or no reporting, as though the writer sat in a corner sucking his/her thumb, and this is what he/she came up with. I’ve also heard it used it to describe a boring, relatively pointless story. Another possibility: a story whose factual basis is questionable. But the first definition is the one I heard earliest, and most often since.