beat contributor, beat writer

[Alan Cox]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 06:39:33PM +0200, Alain PORTAL wrote:
> > that is all they would do. His/her job is to know everything (and everyone)
> > around that specific topic.
> 
> Can we say this is similar to a column in journalism?

Vaguely - a column may discuss different topics each week depending what the
columnist wants to write about so could be very varied. A beat writer isn't
neccessarily producing stuff each week for a slot either, they may produce 
little some times (eg if they cover the Rugby they might do little in summer
but in the playing season be doing regular pieces, and special coverage and
if teams do well putting together material for pullout extras as well as pieces
to order whenever something happens)