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
The word filibuster has a long and colorful history, going back to the days when pirates roamed the high seas. Today it refers to hijacking a piece of legislation. Plus, the language of yoga teachers: When doing a guided meditation, you may hear...
After our conversation about towns with extremely short names, many listeners wrote to tell us about Why, Arizona. Others pointed out that there are towns called Ely in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nevada. Other super-short appellations include Rye, New...
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.