A Letter From the Editor: A trip to the other side

How’s your weekend been? Good?!

That’s good!

Mine has been pretty typical, outside of the fact I, Jeff Hartman, have now experienced what it is like to go to the other side of the Pittsburgh Steelers media pantheon.

No, I’m not a huge name, and never really desire to be that individual. However, when I was given very credible, sourced information about the team’s interest in Chase Young, I felt privileged to run with the story.

I talked about it in the podcast below, even if you missed the news Saturday morning. Check it out in the player below:

What I wasn’t expecting when I recorded that podcast, or wrote the article, was the backlash. I knew Steelers fans would be interested in the topic, but I wasn’t expecting the overall backlash from multiple fan bases.

Little did I know, multiple outlets would pick up the story and run with it. I’ve done this thousands of times, so it is par for the course. However, on Twitter I found fans of the Washington Commanders, Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Browns and even the Steelers coming at me as if I somehow insulted their biological mothers.

Being told I made up the news was something I was expecting, but as the news grew I got a glimpse into the lives of what NFL “insiders” or even Steelers beat writers likely deal with on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. Every tweet is read over with a fine-toothed comb, and speculation from every word is fair game.

Like I said, as someone who doesn’t break news or have a history of sourced material, I was expecting many to be skeptical of the report. That’s fine. I know who the source is, and it’s more than solid. I also know in the report all which was said was the Steelers were interested in Young. Interest doesn’t equate to a guaranteed transaction of any kind.

But, here I was logging onto Twitter and seeing the “20+” over the notifications and realizing this is a cycle which won’t be ending anytime soon.

Going to “the other side” has given me perspective on those who cover the team closely on a daily basis, or should I say are “in the room” every day. With it was a view of the torment they must receive whenever they report what they’re seeing.

Will this stop me from utilizing the news which is brought to me and spreading it? If you read the article on Elijah Riley which ran at 8:30am ET on this very site you know that won’t happen. But I will now approach that type of news with a different appreciation for the people who do this more frequently than me.

In the meantime, expect the same coverage of the Steelers coming from me, and everyone else here. That won’t be changing anytime soon.

(Note: The Letter From the Editor article runs every Sunday during the Pittsburgh Steelers offseason.)