Q&A with Taylor Haase: Her Career in Sports Journalism

taylor

The day before the NHL season began, I interviewed Taylor Haase, Pittsburgh Penguins beat writer for DK Pittsburgh Sports. We talked about her experience as a hockey reporter, what it's like to be in the sports journalism business, and the season ahead. Listen to a few snippets from our conversation in the podcast below.

Transcript

Anzhuo: Imagine chatting to Sidney Crosby about his favorite restaurants, interviewing Evgeni Malkin after a game-winning goal, and visiting every city with an NHL rink.

Taylor Haase is the Pittsburgh Penguins beat writer for DK Pittsburgh Sports, covering all of those and more. This is her sixth year on the job. Before the start of the 2023 NHL season, I spoke with her to learn more about what it's like to work in sports journalism and the day-to-day of covering a professional hockey team like the Penguins.

Taylor: I really cover all aspects of the team; all the day to day stuff like practices and games and travelling and on the road and writing a lot of like analysis type pieces and keeping up with the news and as part of my job I also have to do a podcast, too.

Anzhuo: Since there’s so many things that her job entails, I asked if there’s a particular topic she likes to write about most.

Taylor: I tried to pick an avenue that I think other writers don’t really pay a lot of attention to, and so for me that’s prospects. So one of my favorite things to do is to get to know those players when they’re very young, maybe rookies at the pro level, and then covering them as they come up. That’s super helpful, too, because then if they ever do make it up to Pittsburgh that I’ve known them for years and they’re comfortable talking to you.

Anzhuo: She also shared more about her unexpected start in the journalism business.

Taylor: So I started out, the company that I work for now, I was running their social media and that’s all I was doing, it wasn’t really writing at all. On the side I was really into following Wilkes-Barre and Wheeling and all the Penguins prospects. When there was an opening for a Wilkes-Barre writer, I honestly didn’t want to do it. I liked what I was doing with the social media, but my boss had basically said we don’t want to hire someone new, and you’re the only one on staff who really cares about any of this, so you’re gonna do it. And so that was really my introduction into reporting, writing articles like that. It wasn’t really something I did in college. I was kind of forced into it that way and I realized I liked reporting, writing features, that kind of stuff. It wasn’t my choice but I’m glad the choice was made for me.

Anzhuo: So did you have the love for hockey before any thoughts of sports journalism?

Taylor: I grew up a fan of all things hockey. I knew I wanted to work in sports somehow, I didn’t know exactly what that would be and eventually I settled on social media. And I realized I didn’t actually like that too much after all so I got into writing but yeah definitely just wanted to do something in hockey.

Anzhuo: I asked about how she gathers the information that she writes about, and if it’s mostly interviews or more observation.

Taylor: It’s a mix of both for sure. We don’t really do straight game recaps because people can get that kind of stuff anywhere. What you tend to do is pick something from the game, so if Jarry has a shutout, then lead with that and really focus on that and the other stuff is kind of secondary. So I’m writing about the stuff you observe but then, you know, you talk to people after in the locker room. Practices, it’s the same way. You watch what they’re doing in practice and if they switch something up like the line combinations or the power play and you notice that then you go down to the locker room and talk to people about what happened or sometimes it’s just like nothing new happens in practice so then really I’m not working off observation at all, I just have to come up with an idea. Today I’m gonna write about how Noel Acciari’s been doing on the fourth line and just talk to people in the locker room about that.

Anzhuo: As we concluded our conversation, she gave some advice for aspiring journalists.

Taylor: The biggest thing for me is that you gotta be able to diversify what you’re able to do. I feel like no one that gets into beat writing just writes anymore. You have to know how to shoot interview video even if it’s just your phone and what to do with it and doing a podcast. I feel like every writer has a podcast now and you just kind of have to because that’s where the ad money is. I know like years and years ago, the way that people get into beat writing is you start covering high school sports and maybe you get into college sports and maybe you get into the pros and you kind of work your way up that way. But what people do now, I didn’t do that, I started out doing social media and that was my foot in the door. There’s just all kinds of ways to get into it now and it helps if you can do a bunch of different kinds of things because it’s that much more valuable.

Anzhuo: Reporting for Northeastern University, I’m Anzhuo Wang.

Music: Magic Scout - Cottages, Kevin MacLeod

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