The article is devoted to the study of the functioning of the new expression “gas bang” in news texts. The purpose of the article is to establish the linguistic status of this phrase. The lexical and stylistic compatibility of the components of the expression and its semantic valence are considered. During the analysis of dictionaries and reference materials, it was revealed that this expression is a combinable neologism. It has been established that the neologism “gas bang” appeared as a result of stylistic migration from the narrow term system of professional discourse of civil defense, protection of the population and territories from emergency situations into media discourse. The mechanism of transition of professional vocabulary into commonly used vocabulary is described from the point of view of the stylistic error of incorrect word choice and the use of the rhetorical trope of litotes. The author argues that the litote construction “gas bang” is used to discreetly express an objective assessment of an event, usually described in Russian using the phrase “gas explosion”. The research states that the linguistic innovation “gas bang”, being a deviation from the linguistic norm, is a pragmatically significant unit of context associated with the strategy of discourse moderation. The analyzed innovation shows the capabilities of the language system in implementing such a strategy, which is in demand now.