Posted by Michael Dombkoski 
These words, spoken by Washington Post sports blogger and UD grad Dan Steinberg at a recent talk with journalism students, were his description of his job as a journalists. Joking, of course, was Steinberg, but the point he was trying to get at involved the ever-changing landscape of journalism. Even as a sports writer, the move from print to online journalism has affected the way Steinberg writes.
When Steinberg graduated from UD in 1998, the only job he could find was working in the cheese section of a Whole Foods market. When he started missing writing, he started publishing a weekly wine and cheese publication for the store.
Steinberg eventually was able to earn a full time writing position with the Post as a college sports writer, including being the main contributor for George Mason’s men’s basketball team’s magical Cinderella run and covering the Winter Olympics in Italy in 2006.
Since then, Steinberg has become the main sports blogger for the Post, covering the major professional and collegiate teams in the DC area. However, how he covers DC sports may not be the method one would think.
“My office is wherever a computer is,” says Steinberg. He says rarely goes to games anymore because everything he needs can be accessed through a computer or TV screen. When he actually goes to the events, he worries he could missing other big stories by not having instant access to information.
In fact, the last time he went to a game was when he went to a Washington Redskins game and nearly missed a great story about the Washington National’s rookies being dressed as giant Smurfs. Now, this may not sound like a game-changing story, but it fits the quirky writing style of Steinberg.
“Kind of interesting is my standard,” he said.
Steinberg’s breakthrough story was one involving an investigation of a local charter school that was funded by the Marriott Hotel company. After investigating for quite some time, he discovered that the school, which suddenly had become a basketball powerhouse, was acquiring their players by some not so standard means. As a result of this story, the school shut down their team and Steinberg received an award for his journalistic efforts.
Since that piece, Steinberg has continued to pump out stories for the Post’s online site, occasionally being posted to print. Although many old school journalists may not like the current online journalism landscape, he embraces it. As long as he’s able to write pieces he wants to write about, the online aspect doesn’t phase him.
“Technology wise, I could train anyone to do what I do in five minutes,” he said, describing the lack of difficulty of working online in journalism.
So, no, “not do anything” is not the proper description for Steinberg, as he indicated. Rather, Steinberg is a sports journalist chugging along in the changing landscape. And although he may not still go to games, he can still write pretty damn well about them.