Taylor Swift, in case you haven’t noticed, is the subject of a lot of headlines. Countless, in fact, and published every single day. You can read stories of cryptid-like Swift sightings—she’s decamping to the Bahamas and eating pizza at a dive bar; or free-association traffic bets like “Will Taylor and Travis Make Their Met Gala Debut?” and “Are Taylor and Travis Going to Coachella?” Even outlets like the National Review, a publication historically defined by its asserted immunity to liberal frivolity, has jumped on the gravy train, with a whopping 12 pieces about Swift in 2024 alone. Every time she breathes, a dozen digital culture writers have to pen 300 words about it (present company included). By this point in her career, Swift has accumulated an ungodly hoard of both capital and influence, to the point that entire industries and local economies revolve around her—it makes twisted sense that you could carve a beat reporting on her activities alone.
Which makes it all the more ironic that the singer is notorious for being one of the most media-proof individuals on the planet, hermetically sealed from any and all avenues of inquiry. Famously, she does zero interviews, produces her own documentaries, and is never seen in public without a small army of coordinators and flacks, who are likely equipped with an ominous dossier on all reporters within a 10-mile radius. One of the rare print sit-downs she’s granted in recent years was with Time, when she was conveniently named its 2023 Person of the Year; the resulting profile was a soft enshrinement of her majesty, written by one of the very few journalists Swift seemingly trusts. Coming up with an original thought about Swift is hard enough; landing a scoop on her might as well be impossible.
So how is the industry’s preeminent Taylor Swift reporter managing, given these known constraints? Last summer, if you’ll recall, during the scintillating apex of the records-shattering “Eras” tour, USA Today announced the opening of a full-time Taylor Swift reporter position amid a yearslong austerity campaign. The job listing, posted in September, promised an hourly wage between $21 and $50, and was in search of a writer who possesses “a thorough understanding of metrics and how to use data to understand audience behavior and to inform coverage decisions.” By November, the newspaper had found their guy, as announced in a Variety exclusive that read more like a prostration toward the throne: a broadcast refugee and crossfit enthusiast named Bryan West, who, in a past life, produced local news reports for a number of Arizona television affiliates. Given that West is an avowed Swiftie—with a photo of him and the singer pinned to the top of his 30,000-follower-strong Instagram page—his hiring did not inspire much hope at the time, at least among the more skeptical of media consumers, that he would bring a particularly hard-hitting approach to the beat.
Now, six months into the job and on the precipice of another shockwave of Swift mania—the songwriter’s 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department, is set to be released on April 19—it’s time for a check-in. I dug through the dozens of stories listed in his recent archive and found … nothing too surprising, to be honest. To nobody’s shock, journalism’s official Taylor Swift reporter is not piecing together monumental, 10,000-word investigations into the inner workings of the songwriter’s machine, or, by all appearances, pulling together a source-burning profile of Swift’s mafioso-like PR agent, Tree Paine, likely risking life and limb in the process. Instead, he’s detailing the bonus content available on the Disney+ import of the Eras Tour concert film; he’s composing quick, Wikipedia-like capsule biographies of Swift’s band; he’s posting captionless photo reels of fans milling about the merch lines in Sydney, Australia. In other words, he’s doing a lot of the soft, brand-conscious Swift coverage that has dominated the pages of every other entertainment publication for the past decade—a lot of Tumblr-lite cryptography, soft-focus trend stories, and flat, lore-driven gossip sufficiently defanged and muffled by innumerable PR channels. (USA Today’s owner Gannett, speaking on behalf of West, declined to comment for this piece, citing the reporter’s full schedule—the man stays busy!)
This is not an indictment of West so much as an indictment of, well, everything happening in media, entertainment, and celebrity culture. Taylor Swift—as is her prerogative, to be fair—is so powerful that she can assert complete control over her image and her media. This even extends to her compatriots: When a reporter recently asked producer and frequent Swift collaborator Jack Antonoff a mild question about whether or not he’s involved in The Tortured Poets Department, he terminated the interview like he had a sniper trained on his skull. And even if a reporter did carve out an entry point into the brain trust, do we have any proof that the average Swiftie wants to read coverage of their favorite songwriter in a more neutral or even critical light? Four years ago, the author of Pitchfork’s 8.0 review of Folklore was pilloried and harassed for days by fans who didn’t find her prose to be sufficiently glowing. With readers like that, who needs enemies? The whole entertainment media strata lost this war a long time ago. There is no such thing as a dishy profile anymore. Hell, there’s no such thing as a celebrity interview that lasts longer than 15 minutes, and isn’t organized by a leering corporate benefactor.
So it’s only natural that West’s Swift stories are largely rote. (One of his recent headlines: “Is Taylor Swift Making 2024 the Year of Poetry With Her New Album?” What? Shut up!) But you have to give him some credit. Despite the existentially futile nature of his assignment, he has found a way to keep his author’s page defiantly populated with ideas. And he even flexes some old-school newspaper-bred chops on occasion. West has seldom been adversarial toward the singer, but he did a credible job covering the fan who died of heat stroke at one of Swift’s concerts, and in a story on the fake-ticket scams that plagued the “Eras” tour, West interviewed multiple victims of the swindling, as well as a psychiatrist who studies “human vulnerabilities,” providing a gumshoe backdrop of what these phishing attempts look and feel like. On a much lighter note, West took a similar approach when Swift was photographed on a date with Travis Kelce, clutching a sumptuous leather messenger bag; he tracked down the bag’s designer, Ramesh Nair, for the Parisian luxury label Joseph Duclos, and peppered him with questions about receiving such a public endorsement. (“It’s just fantastic. She carries it so well,” was the designer’s valuable insight.)
Still, in an ideal future, the general public would grow exhausted by the tsunami of glitzy non-content foisted upon us by the celebrity class. Surely, after enough autobiographical documentaries about one’s own transcendence—conveniently snipping out any potential for provocative questions, to the point of historical erasure—there must be a growing demand for the original function of entertainment media. Just let us ask you some questions! We’re not that scary, I promise.
But, in the meantime, let us raise a glass to the deluge of headlines that ever-grinding bloggers and reporters will squeeze out of thin air as Swift’s next promotional cycle kicks off. “Ten Easter Eggs Hidden in The Tortured Poets Department”? “Travis Kelce Sends Adorable Message of Support to Girlfriend Swift While Rocking a Cool Pair of Shades”? “Is Taylor Swift’s New Album Imprinted on the Dark Side of the Moon?” It makes no difference that USA Today was merely the first outlet to put an official job title to it—we are all Taylor Swift reporters now, whether we like it or not.
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