[3] It is pertinent that beat reporters contact their sources quickly, obtain all necessary information, and write on deadline.
[4] Some of the best inside stories, such as the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Watergate scandal, did not come from beat reporting.
[5] Beats are able to help reporters define their roles as journalists, and also avoid overlap of stories within the newsroom.
[8] The term comes from the noun beat in the sense of an assigned regular route or habitual path, as for a policeman.
[9] Similarly, a beat reporter will follow the same routes or habitual paths in collecting new information on a specified topic.