news peg

noun

1. a news story that forms the basis of or justification for a feature story, editorial, political cartoon, or the like.
2. the reference in a feature story, editorial, or the like, to the newsworthy event that underlies or justifies it.

Word History and Origins

Origin of news peg¹

First recorded in 1955–60

Example Sentences

The news peg, of course, was that Trump was on his way to report on Tuesday for arraignment on still-undisclosed charges handed down last week by a New York grand jury.

From Washington Post

And that shooting, of course, has served as a news peg for larger stories: The Georgia Avenue attack, reported WJLA, marked at least five children as victims of gun violence in D.C. in less than 48 hours.

From Washington Post

Just to talk about a recent news peg, there was that whole discussion about whether we should talk about monkeypox as being sexually transmitted.

From Slate

The next change — and this is the breaking news peg that makes this column so timely — will occur on Saturday, Feb. 5.

From Los Angeles Times

And they should use the campaign as a news peg to revisit structural problems with Trump's leadership that sometimes get lost in the day-to-day, like the fact that he doesn't really seem to understand what he's talking about a lot of the time, or that there appears to be no actual decision-making process in the White House.

From Salon