British parliamentary scandal shows that old-fashioned scoops can still sell papers.

As The Daily Telegraph splashes tales of taxpayer-financed duck islands and moat-cleaning across its front pages, there is talk of a political revolution along the Thames. Some of the conventional wisdom of the news business has gone belly up, too.

One of the most interesting aspects of the scandal is the revelation that old-fashioned scoops can still sell papers. Many publishers have assumed that in the Internet era, “exclusives” stay that way for about three seconds, so they are not worth pursuing. Instead, they have shifted the emphasis of their papers toward analysis or opinion.

But The Telegraph’s exclusives, serialized like popular 19th century novels, have made a big difference at the newsstand. According to unaudited industry figures, The Daily Telegraph sold a cumulative total of about 900,000 additional copies in the first two weeks of its reports. On some days, its circulation jumped more than 10 percent from the official April level of about 818,000.