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Journalism & Media vocabulary · Reporting and News Writing

Beat

Meaning in journalism & media, with examples

/biːt/nounCommon term

In journalism & media, beat means: The subject, institution or area that a reporter covers regularly, such as health, education, crime, the courts or city hall.

In Turkish: muhabirlik alanı, takip alanı, alan

How it is used

Reporters cover, work or are assigned a beat, and develop sources on their beat. Beat reporters are specialists, unlike general assignment reporters who cover whatever comes in.

Example sentences

  1. After two years on the education beat, she knows every head teacher in the city.

  2. Who covers the health beat while Murat is on holiday?

Common collocations

  • cover a beat
  • beat reporter
  • health beat
  • on the crime beat
  • assigned to a beat
  • reporterA journalist whose main job is to find out what is happening, talk to people, collect facts and write or broadcast news stories about it.
  • correspondentA reporter who is based in a particular city or country, or who specialises in one subject, and sends regular reports from there or about it.
  • sourceA person, document or organisation that gives a journalist information for a story; also the place where a piece of information comes from.
  • angleThe particular point of view or focus a journalist chooses for a story, which decides which facts and voices come first.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Reporting and News Writing

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