Post-Gazette to cease operation after May 3 edition
January 7, 2026For about 240 years The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has been “One of America’s Great Newspapers”. Although lately one might question that distinction, especially as the newspaper faces extinction.
On December 31, 2025, Block Communications told the employees of The City Paper – the 30+ year-old free paper owned by a subsidiary of Block – they no longer had jobs effective immediately. CP went dark as the ball atop the Joseph Horne/Highmark building ascended into the new year.
Today, Block, who claims to have lost $350 Million in cash over the last 20 years of The PG’s operation, has given the employees of the Post-Gazette just a little under four months’ notice to take the age old paper into extinction. This comes on the heels of what has been called one of the longest strikes, if not THE longest strike, to have happened among writers and others for the PG – three years. In a release obtained by PBRTV, the paper says, “Recent court decisions would require the Post-Gazette to operate under 2014 labor contract that imposes on the Post-Gazette outdated and inflexible operational practices unsuited for today’s local journalism.” It goes on to say the Block family deeply regrets the affect this move will have on the region.
The Blocks have owned the paper “for nearly a century and will exit with their dignity intact.”
This move will not affect the paper’s sister, The Toledo Blade
I look for someone like Gannett (who already owns the Beaver County Times and USA Today, among others) to buy them. Either that or Ogden Newspapers, whose owner that shall not be named also owns a certain Major League Baseball team that calls the North Shore home.
Either way, I’m surprised the P-G had lasted as long as it has. The Block family should have addressed the labor issues when the bought (and shut down) the Pittsburgh Press from Scripps, and maybe even kept the Press open while shutting down the P-G then.
Will this effect any of the hosts at the fan?