From growing up watching the Steelers play every Sunday at Heinz Field to finishing his seventh season as the Steelers’ beat writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, football has always held an important role in Brian Batko’s life, and there is no doubt that his roots are firmly set in Pittsburgh.

However, Batko didn’t start out with the job he has today. At the beginning of his time he wrote covering high schools in the area for the Post Gazette.

“Covering a high school basketball player, or tennis player or a runner, it’s a really rewarding thing to do because that story is going to go on their fridge. It’s going to go in their scrapbooks forever, and they’ll give you all the time in the world. They want to talk to you about their achievements. They don’t have a bunch of people trying to talk to them and interview them every single day,” Batko said. 

Eventually, Batko’s job changed at the Post-Gazette and he started covering Pitt athletics. He soon realized that college athletes were more like professional ones compared to their counterparts still in high school. The major-step in his career would ultimately prepare him for the experiences he would have in the NFL.

“College is sort of in between. I covered Pitt, and that’s in the world of major college athletics. Teams are a lot more conservative about who you can interview and when. But a lot of those guys are also trying to make a name for themselves, get to the NFL, get to the next level, or the NBA in the case of college basketball. It’s good from a standpoint of they don’t have too big of an ego yet, but at the same time you don’t have as much access,” he said. 

Finally, he was given the job as the Steelers beat writer in 2019, something Batko had been working towards since he was a kid.

“I grew up watching and rooting for the Steelers. So that was the dream job, I guess, writing about sports in Pittsburgh,” Batko said.

While he may have a dream job in the sports journalism world, he was unsure about committing to journalism for the rest of his life.

“If you’d have asked me as a junior or senior in college, I would have said writing would have been my third option or choice of what I thought I was going to do. And yet it’s been my career for 13 years.”

As is the case with most jobs, there are pros and cons. Being a Steelers beat reporter can be very time consuming.

“There are pros and cons to every job. I’ve had to carry my laptop around if it’s free agency time for the Steelers. You never know when (the Steelers are) going to make a move. Pull (my laptop) out at one of my kids birthday parties and or go to the car and start writing in there,” he said. 

When he’s not writing at birthday parties or in his car, Batko has followed all around the country with the Steelers, in what possibly is the biggest pros and cons at the same time. 

“It’s a cool way to see the country covering football. It feels a little more hollow when you have a couple little kids at home like I do and you know you’re missing some of the weekends, but I think maybe it’s an old school journalism mindset for me.”

Although the traveling is a sacrifice, actually making trips to the games and being there can make Batko’s job just a little easier.

“When you’re covering the team as a beat writer there’s really value in being there in person, seeing the players face to face, talking to them after games. Them seeing you too and knowing when this guy approaches me about a story, you’re not just a random person coming out of the woodwork.”

Over the course of his time covering the Steelers, Batko has seen plenty of things, but one of the most significant things happened at the end of this past season when head coach Mike Tomlin stepped down, something that he said was somewhat of a surprise to him. 

“Mike Tomlin was the only head coach I’d ever covered. Now, I’ll have to learn about Mike McCarthy. But that’s something that other beat writers around the league probably deal with all the time, coaches changing, new faces coming in. The Steelers and their continuity is pretty unique to cover.”

Through every major event Batko has been providing the fans with the information they want, but also the information they deserve. 

“Our job is to be a conduit to the fans. You might want to hear about what happened if you’re investing time and money into these teams. I think philosophically that’s why we cover sports from that perspective.”

While he has been reporting the news for 13 years, recently developments have him along with all of his co-workers at the Post-Gazette in the news. With the newspaper announcing it is stopping operations in May, there is a lot of uncertainty for him and his family. But, he isn’t viewing the announcement about the Post-Gazette closing as a purely negative.

“This is the great unknown for me, and it’s not really unique. There’s a lot of places like that in this business, as the newspaper model gets folded into the internet and blogs and social media and different independent outlets,” he said.

However, as the newspaper industry begins to change, its writers are forced to follow. Batko isn’t entirely sure what’s next for him, but in the next few months the “great unknown” is the most foreboding figure in his life.

“But at the same time, like we talked about, the newspaper industry has changed a lot, and it’s kind of a dying medium. You kind of have to adapt or die.”