also: べたきじ
insignificant article; filler piece
Newspaper jargon for a short, trivial article used to fill space, often without a headline or byline.
An insignificant article was placed in a corner of the newspaper.
Standard spelling using katakana for ベタ and kanji for 記事.
Hiragana variant; less common but still used.
From ベタ (solid, plain, or filler) + 記事 (article). The exact origin of ベタ in this context is uncertain, but it likely refers to the article being a plain block of text without prominent layout.