as a beat

English translation: both

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)

English term or phrase:	as a beat
Selected answer:	both
Entered by:	Yasutomo Kanazawa

23:15 Jul 17, 2016

English language (monolingual) [PRO]
Art/Literary - Journalism / Scientific Journalism

English term or phrase: as a beat

Gawande says he tries to address some of the challenges inherent in science journalism by waiting on a story to see whether it holds up. “I’ll tend to sit on it for a while and say, ‘How’s it going to look in three months or six months? Where is this evolving?’ If you’re in short-form reporting, that means circling back on the stories you did six months or a year ago and saying, ‘Okay, now how does it look from that perspective?’ and developing it as a beat. That’s your way around getting caught out in the moment by whatever the current hype is.”

I found that a beat means "a specific topic or area." But I'm not sure how it should be translated here. Does the author mean that the reporter should review his previous work and then try to improve it as a subject in itself? Or to try to work on it as something that he specializes in??

http://journalism.about.com/od/reporting/a/beat.htm

Mariam Abdullah

both

Explanation:
My interpretation would be both, i.e. reviewing one's previous work and trying to improve it as a subject, or as the article says in your link, to study and do more research in the area which one has interest or specializes in.

As to reviewing one's previous work, this could happen if there were false or misleading information in your previous work, and realized it after a while, or some developments were seen (for ex., you did a cover story on a certain murder suspect, 2 months later, he was tried, found guilty and sentenced to life).

As to the doing more research in the area which one has interest or specializes in, one has to broaden one's network, such as meeting people and increasing sources as much as possible, plus doing one's studying and researching on your own to keep up and be up-to-date with the latest news or knowledge in one's area of specialization.

So, I would say both.

Selected response from:

Yasutomo Kanazawa
Japan
Local time: 14:24

Grading comment

4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED

5 +1

as a particular topic

Mahmoud Altarabin

4 +1

both

Yasutomo Kanazawa

4 -2

as a person's area of interest.

airmailrpl

Discussion entries: 2

Answers

7 hrs confidence:

peer agreement (net): -2

as a person's area of interest.

Explanation:
as a beat => as a person's area of interest.

an area allocated to a police officer to patrol.
"a patrolman who strived to make his beat a safe one"
synonyms: circuit, round, route, way, path
"a cop on his beat"

a spell of duty allocated to a police officer.
"her beat ended at 6 a.m."
an area regularly frequented by someone, typically a prostitute.
a person's area of interest.
"his beat is construction, property, and hotels"

35.
one's assigned or regular path or habitual round:
a policeman's beat.

airmailrpl
Brazil
Local time: 02:24
Native speaker of:

English,

Portuguese
PRO pts in category: 4

8 hrs confidence:

peer agreement (net): +1

both

Yasutomo Kanazawa
Japan
Local time: 14:24
Native speaker of:

Japanese
PRO pts in category: 4

Notes to answerer

Asker: Thank you for the detailed explanation

9 hrs confidence:

peer agreement (net): +1

as a particular topic

Explanation:
A beat is a particular topic that an individual reporter covers for a period of many years.
There is no possible interpretation for it that calling it "a particular topic"

Example sentence(s):

http://journalism.about.com/od/journalismglossary/g/glbeat.htm

Mahmoud Altarabin
Palestine
Local time: 08:24
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

Arabic

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English translation: both

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