(Copied in from comments) To "spike a story" - this is to abandon a story and not publish it or follow it up. A "hook" or a "news peg" is an element in a story that makes it newsworthy - of interest to a broad audience at a particular time. "Once the option of a warning was discarded" : the writer has just argued that the paper should have taken a particular approach - withholding the story and threatening or warning the subject of the story that the paper would publish what it knew unless his future behaviour met the paper's requirements. He calls this "a warning". His thought here is that the newspaper must have considered this option, and chosen to do something else - so "the warning option was discarded.". I hope this helps.

(Part two - I reached a text entry limit in my previous post.) The exact nature of the "public interest" is indeed a merry dance. The legal systems in many countries provide protection for newspapers and journalists acting "in the public interest". The exact definition of "in the public interest" can become a matter for the courts - as it may very shortly in a case involving the UK's Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and a British newspaper. A broad working definition might be (this is lifted from an article I will link to below): "Put simply, the public interest is about what matters to everyone in society. It is about the common good, the general welfare and the security and well-being of everyone in the community we serve. "The public interest is not just what the readers, listeners or viewers want either as consumers or people who want to be entertained." Many newspapers, though, generate audiences and revenue from print sales and advertising by reporting on the private lives of rich, famous or beautiful people. Often, those publications seek to exploit the confusion you raised, and argue that anything that the public finds interesting is "in the public interest". This argument usually fails in court. The USA, though, has broad "freedom of the press" interpretations arising partly from its "first amendment". In the UK, the print press has considerable political power, and although there are limits in law to its ability to intrude into people's privacy, successive British governments have avoided introducing any effective powers to control press misbehaviour. https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/the-public-interest https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveson_Inquiry https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/24/meghan-and-harry-listen-in-as-case-against-mail-on-sunday-starts

Hi dbwlskd. There's always an element of opinion in interpreting complex text, like the article you've used as a source here. I'll do my best, but do keep in mind that this is simply one opinion; yours could well be better than mine. "Once the option of a warning was discarded": to my mind, this is referring to the internal editorial discussions and decision-making at the newspaper. So this means something like "once the editorial board or editor had taken the decision not to use the approach of issuing a "warning"." (I might add that in my opinion no or very few editors would ever contemplate such a "warning" strategy, by the way. It could be interpreted as blackmail or coercion - potentially criminal offences by the newspaper.) So the writer suggests, in my view, that once the editorial or management decision had been made not to issue a warning, it was left with two options: either publish the story (and damage the man), or not publish it (spike it"). As to "end in itself", "end" in this context means something like "goal", or "purpose", or objective. The writer's suggestion is that the paper's reason to publish, if taken, would be to destroy the reputation of a man "as an end in itself" - the reason for publication would be to destroy the reputation. Incidentally, this is a suggestion that the newspaper in question, and, I think, any reputable newspaper would reject. The paper would quite likely argue that it has significant facts about an individual with a high public profile which shows him to be not what he pretends to be, and that is in the public interest to publish that material. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmail http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/research/privacy.pdf

Thank you so much! 1. I understand now what a warning and all the other things you've explained means, but still don't really get what "once the option was discarded"... I'm not sure if this is the right way to put it to ask what I don't understand, but what does "Once the warning was discarded" *imply/suggest* then? Is he saying 1)the journalist should have put Ellis on notice. 2) But *if* the professor continued lying *even after* the journalist warned him, (hence 'the option of warning is discarded') 3)then the journalist is left with two choices: abandon the story or publish it? 2. And so "spike the story **as lacking a public hook**" means "not publishing it **because** it wouldn't be newsworthy and of interest to the public"? but which exactly of the two(newsworthy/public interest) does it indicate? cause I feel like something that is not technically newsworthy can also be of interest to public, like gossips are? 3. And what about "end in itself"? What does the last part of the sentence mean here?

To "spike a story" - this is to abandon a story and not publish it or follow it up. A "hook" or a "news peg" is an element in a story that makes it newsworthy - of interest to a broad audience at a particular time. "Once the option of a warning was discarded" : the writer has just argued that the paper should have taken a particular approach - withholding the story and threatening or warning the subject of the story that the paper would publish what it knew unless his future behaviour met the paper's requirements. He calls this "a warning". His thought here is that the newspaper must have considered this option, and chosen to do something else - so "the warning option was discarded.". I hope this helps.