BEAT SWEETENERS.

Matt Yglesias pulls the curtain back a bit on the "beat sweeteners:"

[P]art 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.

I'm not sure this is quite as calculated as Matt implies. New administrations tend to spark a lot of positive profiles because new administrations usher in new players whose power merits attention but who are relatively unknown to the public. The profiles tend to be positive because, well, the players haven't done anything yet and the young president is broadly liked. And when they end, the reporters have the subject's e-mail address and something of a personal relationship.An example of this was Anne Kornblut's profile of Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina. You could see it as a beat sweetener: A positive, light piece about a key inside player. It even involved a videotaped interview about the hard hours and the difficulty of multitasking. Anne Kornblut is almost certainly more likely to receive a return e-mail from Messina having written it. But it was also a legitimate piece. Messina was worth introducing the The Washington Post's readership. It was useful to know more about his "father and son" like relationship with Baucus and his role as administration "fixer." And I think that's the truth of most beat sweeteners: They're legitimate profiles with positive side effects.