Colin Beazley
Colin Beazley is a sports journalist at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette whose work includes coverage of Pittsburgh Pirates baseball, with a focus on clear game accounts built around decisive moments and standout performances. His reporting uses specific plays and players as the spine of the story, turning routine results into readable narrative rather than just a box score recap.
Pirates game coverage and key turning points
Beazley’s coverage of the Pirates centers on what happens on the field, describing how individual innings and at-bats add up to a final result. In his story on a Pirates win over the Cubs, he frames the game around Esmerlyn Valdez’s latest home run and how that swing allowed the team to “run away” with the result, using that moment to explain the shift in momentum and the shape of the scoring.
Within that format, he writes in straightforward, accessible language that mirrors the rhythm of the game itself. He highlights when the score changes, how the pitching holds up, and where an opponent falters, so a reader who missed the broadcast can follow the flow of the night from first pitch to final out. The emphasis stays on what happened, when it happened, and why it mattered to the outcome.
Individual performances within team results
Beazley’s game story on Valdez and the Cubs uses a player’s name and contribution in the headline, signaling how he often builds the narrative around a performer who defines the game. Rather than treating a home run as just another line in the stat sheet, he uses it as an entry point into the broader story of how the Pirates secured control and separated from their opponent.
That approach gives his coverage a player-centric feel without drifting into opinion. He connects a single swing or pitching sequence to the team’s fortunes on the night, showing how a key contributor changes the scoreboard and the tone in the dugout. For communications teams, this means that when Beazley writes about a game, he is likely to focus on the athletes who turn a contest, and to describe their impact in concrete, on-field terms.
4 more sports journalists.
Adair Reid
Adair Reid is a sports columnist for The Cavalier Daily who covers Virginia men’s programs with a blunt, fan-aware voice that treats them as long-term projects rather than one-off games. He focuses on trajectory, legacy and risk, using opinion columns to question coaching decisions and program strategy while grounding his arguments in recent results, records, tournament performance and roster realities. Men’s lacrosse is a recurring subject, and his work on the program’s coaching change shows how he uses a single decision to examine overall health, standards and competitive standing. He frames games in terms of stakes, identity and institutional expectations, emphasizing postseason implications, recruiting, national perception and alignment with a championship standard. He writes mostly in the first person only when needed, keeps the spotlight on institutional choices and brings analysis-first, evidence-based judgment to Virginia’s flagship men’s teams.
Adam Stern
Adam Stern covers the business of motorsports and combat sports at Sports Business Journal, focusing on how sponsorships, media deals and new events reshape racing and fighting. His beat includes NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula 1, NHRA, rallycross, UFC and boxing. He tracks brands, broadcasters, manufacturers, promoters and streaming platforms, with reporting on sponsorship strategy, rights deals, original content, series growth, team projects and technical regulations. He examines how Cadillac’s Formula 1 entry supports broader marketing aims, how F1 Academy builds commercial momentum and whether new MMA promotions can challenge UFC. His work includes short speed reads on deals and longer features on multi-party investments. He reports on the money and strategy behind the action, treating motorsports and combat sports as connected marketplaces shaped by branding, dealmaking and media innovation.
Albert Burneko
Albert Burneko writes about how systems of power bear down on ordinary people, using sports, politics, technology, food, and domestic life as entry points. He is an assignment editor and writer at Defector and part of its founding ownership group. His politics and capital reporting examines how policy, policing, and public rhetoric turn into harm for specific people, centering victims and vulnerable people. He also covers artificial intelligence, media criticism, and technology’s effects, asking who benefits and who absorbs the costs. His domestic writing focuses on parenting, bodily discomfort, and everyday frustration. His recurring Chefector column turns cooking failures into comic studies of impatience, ego, and routine. He writes sharp reported essays, first-person dispatches, mock explainers, and sports-adjacent guides. His work combines moral seriousness, comic voice, close attention to ordinary life, and a focus on how people live under larger systems.
Albert Samaha
Albert Samaha is a sports investigative reporter who uses games to examine how power, money and culture shape players, workers, fans and communities. He works in The Washington Post sports section, covering global tournaments, migration, fan culture, sports betting, match-fixing, ownership, NIL money, football safety, participation gaps and the changing culture of women’s basketball. His reporting connects events on the field to decisions in boardrooms, betting markets, government offices and law enforcement. He previously reported for BuzzFeed News and wrote for the Village Voice, San Francisco Weekly and the Riverfront Times. His work has also appeared in The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, The New York Times and The Paris Review. He writes long, deeply reported stories that combine narrative scenes, data analysis, public records, medical records and other documents.