Somebody plays fluffer for Amazon Cuomo in The Atlantic today (no link, find it yourself). The journalist does love Amazon Cuomo, and you hippies are stupid for not loving him.
Journalists justify beat sweetners on the grounds that source cultivation leads to genuine scoops later. But really they don't. They lead to "scoops" in the sense of "give it to Maggie before giving it to Peter" but not scoops in the sense of investigative journalism that would not have seen the light of day otherwise. They're good for careers and book deals. They're very good for PR purposes for the subjects. They are not good for informing readers of true things that they would not have otherwise learned.
