I've always been a wee bit critical of our great political journalists, but I'm becoming even more intolerant with the the game of political journalism, and the supposed rules, than I used to be. It isn't journalism to pretend to believe people who are liars and to put those lies into print, and then come back to the same bad faith actors again and again and again and again for more of the same.
Arguably it's news when someone as important as the president says something, so I admit that dealing with someone like Trump who lied constantly posed a bit of a challenge (which few bothered to try to meet). But every feral Republican House member, or White House staff member, is not that important. Journalists can withhold their institutional stamp of approval, which is what they give when they quote them and privilege them, to serial hypocrites and liars.
The problem with "the beat sweetener" is that the political beat never ends. It isn't one fawning profile - the archetypal beat sweetener - it's ongoing elevation. I make you look good, or at least important, in print, and in exchange you give me the occasional story.
Journalists at different outlets used to see themselves, somewhat, as competitors, but now they're all just interchangeable club members. A check on ridiculous beat sweetening activities was, at least a bit, your competitors making you look like an idiot in various ways.
Now it's more like they mark their territory - each journalist has their client politicians - and everyone respects it.
