break a story

The students even helped break a story that led to the local school superintendent being outsted, said Peter Laufer, chair of the university’s journalism school.

“As a news reporter, I always do my research before I break a story,” he wrote Monday on X. “I am confident to report that you are so special and amazing!”

When I first started, I thought you had to pitch a fully broken-out story as a staff writer, but it takes a room full of people to break a story.

The narrator can make or break a story.

But the experience that may have helped Smith break a story like the Ozy saga—he was in a good position to know if Ozy’s pitch didn’t add up—also stands to potentially undermine readers’ trust in his work.