puff piece

English

Noun

puff piece (plural puff pieces)

1. (journalism, publishing, informal) A journalistic form of puffery; an article or story of exaggerated praise that often ignores or downplays opposing viewpoints or evidence to the contrary.

   Coordinate term: hit piece

   • 2004, Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, spoken by Steve Zissou (Bill Murray):

     That's your first question? I thought this was supposed to be a puff piece.

   • 2019, Bret Easton Ellis, White‎^[1], Pan Macmillan, →ISBN:

     The magazine had sent David Blum to Los Angeles to profile Emilio Estevez, arguably the most famous of the actors in Joel Schumacher's recently released St. Elmo's Fire, and what had been pitched as a typical puff piece quickly warped into a scathing portrayal that soon became scandalous.

   • 2023 May 9, Arwa Mahdawi, “Elizabeth Holmes is rebranding herself as a sweet, devoted mother. Will anyone buy it?”, in The Guardian‎^[2], →ISSN:

     While I don’t think Chozick’s profile was in any way a puff piece, I understand the anger it has generated. After all, not many mothers facing prison are given a splashy redemption photoshoot in a major paper, are they?

Synonyms

• cream puff piece

Translations

journalistic puffery

• German: Lobeshymne (de) f, Werbetext m, Lobhudelei (de) f
• Polish: laurka f
• Russian: джинса́ (ru) f (džinsá), заказу́ха (ru) f (zakazúxa)
• Ukrainian: джинса́ (uk) f (džynsá)