Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) in journalistic use, a story ‘beats’ rival publications/media.

1908		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 17: That the price of chop suey may go up – was told as an exclusive from Paris in yesterday’s issue of The Bark. In our next issue we will pull off another beat.
1914		Amer. Mag. 77 June 31–5: When I became a newspaper executive [...] I naturally spent less time in Chinatown, but I still kept in touch with my news sources, sources that scored many a good ‘beat’ for my paper.
1928		W. Winchell Your Broadway & Mine 27 Nov. [synd. col.] [The story was] smeared over the front page of every morning paper save the one that had got the beat.
1939		P. Cheyney Don’t Get Me Wrong (1956) 30: He has gotta beat on some tough stuff that is happenin’ over the border.
1942		W.R. Burnett Quick Brown Fox 102: ‘Boy, is the Colonel walking on air. Nothing he loves better than a beat. [...] It’s going out all over the country’.
1953		E. Reid Shame of N.Y. 7: Very few beats have been scored by reporters at Police Headquarters in New York City in recent years.
1972		R. Kahn Boys of Summer 84: [T]he editors [. . .] thought that it was essential that we beat the Times by recording in our city edition ‘nothing for Cleveland in the top of the fourth,’ while the Times city edition recorded only a scoreless tie through three complete innings. [...] To achieve this beat, a Western Union sports ticker had been installed in the composing room .