PITTSBURGH (AP) 鈥� In the space of a couple of weeks this spring, Pittsburgh media has lived through a near-death experience and a resurrection.
Owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last week announced to a nonprofit foundation that said it was committed to keeping it open. A news outlet that predates the U.S. Constitution was due to close on May 3, which would have made the Steel City the nation鈥檚 largest community without a city-based paper.
Weeks earlier, the alternative Pittsburgh City Paper, whose staff learned on New Year鈥檚 Day that it was closing after 34 years, under new ownership.
They were rare positive developments for a local news industry that has of the opposite over the past two decades 鈥� newsrooms shuttered or thinned out, journalists thrown out of work, consumers drifting away. No one is pretending that a true turnaround will be easy in Pittsburgh. One thing that may help is that the city faced a news abyss and was forced to prepare for it.
鈥淚t鈥檚 human nature that sometimes you have to be shaken a bit to realize what鈥檚 important in your life,鈥� said Halle Stockton, co-executive director and editor-in-chief of the digital news outlet .
The Pittsburgh Gazette was born on July 29, 1786, the first newspaper west of the Allegheny Mountains. It went through several names with the expansion and contraction of a newspaper market that supported seven at the beginning of the 20th century. There was The Commercial Gazette, the Gazette-Times and, briefly, the Pittsburgh Gazette and Manufacturing and Mercantile Advertiser.
A consolidation caused by the closing of the Pittsburgh Post in 1927 made it the Post-Gazette, which has remained its name for 99 years.
It had a solid reputation, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2019 for its coverage of the synagogue shooting. 鈥淭he Post-Gazette is really the paper of record for this city,鈥� said , chief of staff to a former Pittsburgh mayor and former president of the Penguins hockey team. The other longtime 鈥減aper of record,鈥� The Pittsburgh Press, closed in 1992 after a Teamsters Union strike.
Labor woes marred the Post-Gazette鈥檚 last few years as well. Much of the staff was on strike between 2022 and 2025, though the newspaper limped along. Its owner, Block Communications, Inc., in January.
To anyone watching closely, a clue to the newspaper鈥檚 future was revealed across town in mid-March.
鈥淵ou thought we were dead and gone, didn鈥檛 you?鈥� Ali Trachta, top editor at the Pittsburgh City Paper, wrote on the outlet鈥檚 revived website. She announced the paper was returning, bought by a new nonprofit of local investors. That former owner? Block Communications.
When Block announced its sale of the Post-Gazette last week, it was also to a nonprofit 鈥� the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, which publishes the digital success story The Baltimore Banner. Many in Pittsburgh feared it would be sold to a hedge fund notorious for stripping newspapers of resources.
Does that make Block, long seen as a villain in the local journalism industry, a hero in this story?
鈥淔or better or worse, the Blocks will never get credit for that,鈥� said Andrew Conte, a journalism professor at Point Park University who runs Pittsburgh鈥檚 Center for Media Innovation. 鈥淏ut it does seem like they made an effort to come up with the best outcome they could as they were leaving Pittsburgh. They could have just walked away and said, 鈥榊ou know, we鈥檙e done.鈥欌��
Now the work begins. The new owner鈥檚 benefactor, hotel magnate Stewart Bainum Jr., has said that he plans to invest $30 million in both the Banner and Post-Gazette over the next five years.
鈥淭his is going to be one of the most closely-watched newspaper acquisitions in years,鈥� said Tim Franklin, founding director of the Medill Local 草莓传媒 Initiative at Northwestern University. 鈥淐an a money-losing newspaper with serious labor strife be saved and resurrected as a non-profit? If Stewart Bainum and his team pull this off 鈥� and I hope they do 鈥� it could be a model for the nation.鈥�
Anticipating a Pittsburgh without the Post-Gazette, other news sources in the city had begun making plans to fill gaps in the marketplace, and they鈥檙e not necessarily changing them because of the sale.
Another area newspaper, the , will reinstate a Sunday print edition in Pittsburgh on May 9 and will add about a dozen new journalists, said Jennifer Bertetto, its CEO.
Stockton鈥檚 Public Source, launched in 2011 primarily as a home for investigative news stories, is widening its outlook. The outlet has also convened town halls over the past few months for residents to talk about what they want in local news, and published a list of 40 to 50 small news outlets in the region that focus on subject areas like the arts and business, or different neighborhoods and towns.
People less engaged in news were looking for new ideas. 鈥淧eople are actively interested in where they get their information and who they can trust for it,鈥� Stockton said. 鈥淪o we鈥檙e leaning into that.鈥�
With their careers in limbo the past several months, Post-Gazette content editor Erin Hebert and photographer Steve Mellon were among several journalists meeting regularly as the Pittsburgh Alliance for People-Empowered Reporting, or PAPER, seeing if they could create a digital news site. Those plans are up in the air.
Conte can walk a few blocks from the university to show office space set aside for journalists from small, local publications. He hopes to convince the Tribune-Review to print a periodic insert featuring the best reporting from these outlets. Conte, a former Trib reporter, recalled his old paper’s bitter competition with the Post-Gazette.
鈥淟iterally, they were trying to kill each other,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think any of us want to go back to a point where we鈥檙e doing that. We鈥檝e evolved. We鈥檙e trying to work together. Even if we鈥檙e competing for scoops and clicks and dollars, there鈥檚 also a benefit to having us get around the same table once a month.鈥�
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David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at and .
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