Beat Sweeteners
Atrios alluded to this the other day, but part of the peculiar set of institutions that constitutes “journalistic ethics” is the idea of a “beat-sweetener.” This means that when a new set of powerful people is put into place, and most of all when a new presidential administration comes to DC, you see a flurry of journalists penning lavishly flattering profiles of different key players. The idea is that the key player in question and his staff will then become a useful source of future information. I don’t think anyone ever quite admits that a piece they’ve handed in is a beat-sweetener, but people in the game generally know one when they see one and it’s frequently joked about and so forth.
As with a lot of other semi-abusive practices in the news business, I don’t think there’s really anything you can “do about it.” Access is inherently a valuable commodity, as is good publicity. So the exchange of good publicity for access is bound to happen. And since the supply of viable distribution channels exceeds the number of powerful political appointees, a certain amount of profile-writing is bound to be a kind of anti-investigative journalism in which the powerful use the press to advance their own agenda.
The underlying logic of the transaction strikes me as so compelling that I’m confident it will long outlive the newspaper or even the idea of journalistic ethics. Still, the widespread social and professional acceptance of this kind of thing—nobody thinks it’s a shameful thing to do—is one of several dozen reasons why I think most journalists could stand to be less self-righteous about their profession.
28 Responses to “Beat Sweeteners”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
April 5th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
I think the US News Media truly has its head buried up its ass.
The American people are busy with jobs, raising children,etc. They don’t need random bits of info with dubious relevance — they need fucking information. The result of indepth analysis and investigation. The fucking Truth.
I’ve worked on intel projects — it is actually very hard to bury evidence while accomplishing anything. Our reporters could do a much better job if they investigated leads and scanned databases rather than spending so much time wandering around Washington looking for insider dicks to suck. Especially when the insiders only talk in order to run a con game.
April 5th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Back in the old days, we had these guys (and sometimes, gals) in the news biz called “editors,” and they’d make sure that crap like this didn’t go on. Of course way back then, reporters were unlikely to be advocates for the people they were covering in the first place. Most of ‘em took their job as neutral observers seriously and would not socialize with their sources. But that’s so yesterday, I guess.
April 5th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Back in the old days, we had these guys (and sometimes, gals) in the news biz called “editors,”
And in the old old days, we had these guys (all guys iirc) called ‘publishers’ who were creating causus belli before they created crosswords.
April 5th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR HILLARY!!!
April 5th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
I prefer the more pornographic “fluffing.” Fluffing is useful prep work when the subsequent stabs at journalism are as Don Williams describes.
April 5th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
I don’t know about the rest of you, but this particular dynamic doesn’t come as some sort of galloping shock to me. And I don’t believe for a second that there was some golden age when journalists didn’t suck up to the powerful for whatever crumbs they decided to throw them.
April 5th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
I’m going to guess that most journos are clustered in a few MeeyerrsBriggss classifications: a specific type goes into the profession, and only a specific type is allowed to advance. Specifically, those who have little analytical capability, who don’t ask too many questions, and who are good at transcriptions.
There’s something you can do about individual reports; I could care less about “beat sweeteners” but if you subscribe to my feed you’ll see how I handle more important issues with MSM reports.
And, there’s nothing preventing anyone from completely undercutting the MSM by doing the things they won’t do.
Everyone has access to a very “viable distribution channel”: Youtube.
April 5th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
As a general concept this doesn’t bother me too much. These profile articles can be interesting and relevant. From the access point of view, they show that a potential source that a reporter has done his/her homework. It’s much nicer to talk to someone who clearly had a clue about your background and where you are coming from.
Still, there’s a difference between a flattering profile and an inaccurate profile. For example, you can do a profile of Larry Summers that is flattering, but still mentions he had key roles in some of the financial policies that later caused problems. A profile that doesn’t mention this would cross the line into being unethical.
The other gray area are pointless ego puffers like the NY Times Magazine series of photos on new administration officials last January. It was mildly interesting to see pictures of these people, but I don’t see how it served any purpose except to make some of those photographed think more highly of the NY Times.
April 5th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Stick your blogwhoring feed up your RSS, Lonewacko.
April 5th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Which do you end up with after the “fluff” piece, the NYT repeating Cheney talking points on Iraqi WMD not Knight Ridder publishing the intelligence community push-back. Write the great stuff (secret prisons, illegal wire-tapping) and people will find a way to get you information, not just “fluff.”
Which brings us to 24aheaddotcom’s point about personality. Reporters were the English majors who had their lunch money stolen every day for twelve years and the idea some important person would be nice to them instead of performing a swirly on them is more than they can resist. They are the wimps and misfits who wanted the cool kids to like them. Then there are the writers who could care less the content as long as they got in a good turn of phrase or zinger.
April 5th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
“Beat sweetener”?
Is that spelled W-O-O-D-W-A-R-D?
April 5th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Of course, bloggers would never do such a thing….
April 5th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
How is it that people like Rupert Murdoch get into this business ?All they print or say in journalism media is hate and lies and half truths.
April 5th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Right. Like Ryan Lizza’s profile of Rahm Emanuel in the New Yorker about three weeks ago.
April 5th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Or the recent TNR article about Summers. Could the writer be any more flattering to Summers without literally sucking his penis?
April 5th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Were journalists always this self-righteous about their profession, or was Watergate really the turning point?
I’ll bet Bob Woodward has written a beat-sweetener or two in his time.
April 5th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
I’ll bet Bob Woodward has written a beat-sweetener or two in his time.
He’s written entire books with them (pretty much everything he’s written since 1991, cept State of Denial.)
April 6th, 2009 at 3:03 am
лучший блог…
Atrios alluded to this the other day, but part of the peculiar set of institutions that constitutes “journalistic ethics” is the idea of a[...]…
April 6th, 2009 at 5:13 am
raivo pommer-www.google.ee
raimo1@hot.ee
EIN PAAR EURO FÜRS PAPIER
Außerdem gibt es mittlerweile Neuigkeiten über die Lehman-Konkursmasse. Laut der ersten Gläubigerversammlung der Lehman Brothers Holding vom 29. Januar verfügt Lehman über Vermögenspositionen von knapp 120 Milliarden Dollar. Die Bank ist damit nicht arm, und es ist nicht auszuschließen, dass es zu Rückflüssen an deutsche Anleger kommt, die über den angebotenen zwei Prozent liegen. In US-Kreisen heißt es, aktuell würden gar Entschädigungsquoten von 15 bis 20 Prozent diskutiert. “Andria Capital hätte diese aktuellen Informationen ihrem Kaufangebot auch beifügen müssen”, kritisiert Peter Mattil, Rechtsanwalt aus München. Das gehöre sich so. “Stattdessen bezieht sich die Gesellschaft auf die alte Information vom 8.Oktober”, kritisiert Mattil.
Andria Capital schreibt in dem Angebot, man wolle bis zu nominal 50 Millionen Euro an Lehman-Papieren erwerben. Bezogen auf die zwei Prozent, die Andria bezahlen will, investiert die Firma insgesamt eine Million Euro. Vorstandschef von Andria ist laut Handelsregister der 30-jährige Marcus Deetz. Er ist seit 2006 auch Stipendiat am Lehrstuhl für Finanzwirtschaft an der Universität Bremen. Deetz möchte seine Tätigkeit bei Andria auf Nachfrage nicht kommentieren; auch nicht, ob er für sich selbst oder im Auftrag anderer handelt.
April 6th, 2009 at 8:19 am
The “Earthquake in Germany” post should be up any minute now…
April 6th, 2009 at 8:45 am
NPR ran a “beat-sweetener” on Peter Orszag this morning.
I’m not surprised that it goes on, but I didn’t know there was a name for it. Now I’ll think of this every time I read or hear one.
April 6th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Cannot forgive you for this Matt.
I LIKE beets. (yes, i saw the spelling … but the pun is so damned obvious)
It’s fluffing. Keeping the subject all distracted and such.
April 6th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
You really want to go there after the Palmieri fiasco, Matt? Really?
April 6th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Are Ryan Lizza’s articles on Obama and Emmanuel beat sweeteners? I think so, especially considering Lizza is now going to be writing a book about the first year of the Obama Admin
April 6th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Beat-sweeteners are one form of article cluttering MSM, especially newspapers. The broadcast equivalent would be the fawning interview, which is harder to disguise when dealing with political figures than with jocks and rock stars.
The news consumer’s watch-list should extend to the kinds of pieces that a former colleague suggested should carry the label, “Reader caution: Contest entry follows.”
April 9th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Даже друзьям разослал ссылку на эту запись!
April 11th, 2009 at 8:35 am
raivo pommer-www.google.ee
raimo1@hot.ee
Deflation hits Ireland
Ireland’s consumer prices fell 2.6 per cent in March from a year ago, the sharpest rate of deflation since 1933, when the world was struggling through the Great Depression, official figures showed yesterday.
The March rate accelerated from an annual deflation rate of 1.7 per cent in February, the Central Statistics Office said. The report said there was no change in prices from February to March, which are now at August 2007 levels.
Ireland’s deflation began in January and reflects the country’s sudden fall into a deep recession.
The country last suffered from deflation in 1960.
Although lower prices can help spending and exports, deflation can be damaging for an economy if prices enter a downward spiral – consumers hold off buying items on expectations they will become cheaper, pushing retailers to cut prices to encourage spending, and so on.
Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, when announcing an emergency budget on Wednesday to trim 3.25 billion ($7.32 billion) from Ireland’s ballooning deficit, said the Government expected deflation to average 4 per cent in 2009.