Barely two weeks before it was due to shut down, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said Tuesday it had found a last-minute buyer — a successful nonprofit journalism operation that has agreed to keep the struggling newspaper open.
The resolution to a months-long worry in western Pennsylvania about the paper’s shutdown comes at a difficult moment for the American newspaper industry, which has shed jobs, resources and sometimes entire companies due to the upending of the traditional revenue model by the internet at the beginning of this century.
The Post-Gazette dates its ancestry to 1786. the first newspaper to open west of the Allegheny Mountains, and its closure would have left Pittsburgh as the nation’s largest community without a city-based paper.
“For us to be a vibrant, strong city, as we are, it’s imperative that we have a newspaper that demonstrates that,” said Jay Costa, the top-ranking Democrat in the Pennsylvania state Senate, whose district encompasses about half of Pittsburgh.
Operations to continue in Pittsburgh
The Post-Gazette’s owners, Block Communications, said the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, which publishes the digital Baltimore Banner, had agreed to buy its assets. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The Post-Gazette said the new owners would continue to print the newspaper on two days, Thursday and Sunday, and would operate a website on the other days.
The newspaper had been due to close on May 3.
“We are committed to working with exceptional journalists, along with civic and business leaders across the region, to build a new future for local journalism in Western Pennsylvania,” said Bob Cohn, CEO of the Venetoulis Institute. “We are clear-eyed about the task ahead. We have learned in Maryland that this work takes time, discipline and investment.”
The institute, which opened the Banner in 2022. said it has appointed David Shribman, who was executive editor of the Post-Gazette from 2003 to 2019. to its board of directors.
The Post-Gazette won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in 2018 under Shribman, but it has been mired in labor strife in recent years.
Block Communications announced in January that it would shut down the newspaper, on the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear its appeal of a lawsuit regarding health benefits to formerly striking workers.
More hope, but more questions too
The Banner, despite being so young, has also won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting. In a difficult time for the news business, the Banner has grown to have 79.500 paid subscribers.
“I’m more hopeful now for the future of the Post-Gazette than I was yesterday,” said Steve Mellon, a longtime photographer at the newspaper. Employees worried that the newspaper would be sold to a hedge fund known stripping assets of media companies, instead of a nonprofit committed to local journalism.
But he said there are still many questions, such as how many staff members will stay on with new ownership and how much Venetoulis would be willing to invest in a newspaper that has been losing money. Mellon and some other journalists at the newspaper have been exploring starting a co-op news website, and he’s not sure what will happen with those plans.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a newspaper based in a Pittsburgh suburb, had been planning to add staff in Pittsburgh and begin publishing a weekend city edition the week after the Post-Gazette was set to close. Its CEO, Jennifer Bertetto, said Tuesday that those plans would not change as a result of its rival’s sale.
Andrew Conte, a journalism professor at Pittsburgh’s Point Park University who’s been active in encouraging small news organizations in the community, said the sale offers a challenge to people in the region: To what extent will they support local journalism? “It’s really in their hands,” he said.
Sara Innamorato, the executive of Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, called the paper a cornerstone of the region’s civic life for generations. Innamorato said in a written statement that the “transition to a nonprofit model represents an opportunity to strengthen independent, community-centered reporting and ensure residents continue to have access to the information they need to stay engaged and informed.”
She said a strong local news source is essential to a healthy democracy, “and that must include supporting the journalists and workers who make this work possible with good-paying, family-sustaining jobs.”
Both Block and Venetoulis described their deal as reflecting “a shared commitment to sustaining local journalism in Pittsburgh.”
