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
Imagine telling someone how to get to your home, but without using the name of your street, or any other street within ten miles. Could you do it? We take street names for granted, but these words are useful for far more, like applying for a job or...
If you speak a second or third language, you may remember the first time you dreamed in that new tongue. But does this milestone mean you’re actually fluent? And a couple’s dispute over the word regret: Say you wish you’d been able...
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.