Lesson plan

Stop press

Stop press or stop the presses is an idiomatic exclamation when significant information is discovered. The phrase stems from the printed news media industry. If the content of an issue needed to be revised just before, or during its printing the printing press was stopped and the content amended, such as by changing the plates or type, before restarting it. Reasons to stop the press might be to add a news item or correct an error. This could cause delay and expense, such as by necessitating that already printed copies be discarded, so was generally reserved for highly significant content changes such as the breaking of a very important news story.

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Article summary

Stop press or stop the presses is an idiomatic exclamation when significant information is discovered. The phrase stems from the printed news media industry. If the content of an issue needed to be revised just before, or during its printing the printing press was stopped and the content amended, such as by changing the plates or type, before restarting it. Reasons to stop the press might be to add a news item or correct an error. This could cause delay and expense, such as by necessitating that already printed copies be discarded, so was generally reserved for highly significant content changes such as the breaking of a very important news story.

Key claims

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Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  3. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.