Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Newspaper To Shut Down | EUROtoday

The house owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette introduced Wednesday that they plan to close down the storied newspaper this spring.

Block Communications, the Toledo, Ohio-based media firm, mentioned in a press release that over the earlier 20 years it had misplaced $350 million operating the paper, which traces its roots again to 1786.

“Despite those efforts, the realities facing local journalism make continued cash losses at this scale no longer sustainable,” it mentioned.

The remaining version of the paper might be revealed May 3.

The firm’s determination got here the identical day it suffered a authorized setback on the U.S. Supreme Court in its yearslong battle with its employees union, the NewsGuild-CWA. The excessive court docket turned down the corporate’s request to dam a decrease court docket order that may pressure it to reinstate a well being care plan for workers specified of their union contract.

Jon Schleuss, the NewsGuild’s president, described the corporate’s transfer as “retaliatory” and “stupid.”

“This comes after [they] spend millions of dollars hiring union-busting attorneys, rather than just paying to provide the health insurance that they collectively bargained with employees,” Schleuss instructed HuffPost.

He added, “The Blocks are really terrible actors who are actually not people who care about providing news to people in Pittsburgh.”

The firm, which additionally owns the Toledo Blade, mentioned in its assertion that the court docket selections would pressure it to simply accept “outdated and inflexible operational practices.”

“We deeply regret the impact this decision will have on Pittsburgh and the surrounding region,” the corporate mentioned.

The closure comes at a time when communities throughout the nation are dropping their native information shops as media firms wrestle to show a revenue. Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative mentioned in an October report that greater than 130 newspapers had shuttered within the earlier 12 months alone.

Staffers on the Post-Gazette waged a three-year strike over the cuts to well being care protection and different advantages. They just lately ended their work stoppage and returned to the workplace after an appeals court docket issued its order requiring the Blocks to honor the collective bargaining settlement and make entire workers who had been harm by the reductions.

As HuffPost reported in 2024, federal labor officers pursued an injunction in opposition to Block Communications in federal court docket on the grounds it had violated workers’ rights by unilaterally altering work circumstances.

Schleuss mentioned even when the corporate shuts down the paper, the union nonetheless expects it to repay staff for well being care price will increase that violated the contract. He praised staffers for hanging so long as they did.

“Journalists at the end of the day have to hold power to account, and that means holding the boss to account when the boss breaks the law,” he mentioned.